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Then he got up. This is a matter of difficulty when one is still very weak, and is achieved by rising first into a sitting posture by pulling oneself up by the bars of the bed, and then by slipping first one leg, then the other, over the side. Properly done, even the weakest thus find themselves in a position that by the aid of a chairback may become, however shaky, a standing one.

He got to his feet better than he expected, but not well enough to relinquish the chair. He had made no sound. That was good. He would tell her in the morning and rally her on her powers as a sleeper. He took a step–if only his knees—-

He had advanced into line with the doorway and stood looking through the open door of the room across.

The Nurse was on her knees beside the bed, in her nightgown, crying. Her whole young body was shaken with silent sobs; her arms, in their short white sleeves, stretched across the bed, her fingers clutching the counterpane.

Billy Grant stumbled back to his bed and fell in with a sort of groan. Almost instantly she was at the door, her flannel wrapper held about her, peering into the darkness.

“I thought I heard–are you worse?” she asked anxiously.

“I’m all right,” he said, hating himself; “just not sleepy. How about you?”

“Not asleep yet, but–resting,” she replied.

She stood in the doorway, dimly outlined, with her long braid over her shoulder and her voice still a little strained from crying. In the darkness Billy Grant half stretched out his arms, then dropped them, ashamed.

“Would you like another blanket?”

“If there is one near.”

She came in a moment later with the blanket and spread it over the bed. He lay very still while she patted and smoothed it into place. He was mustering up his courage to ask for something–a curious state of mind for Billy Grant, who had always taken what he wanted without asking.

“I wish you would kiss me–just once!” he said wistfully. And then, seeing her draw back, he took an unfair advantage: “I think that’s the reason I’m not sleeping.”

“Don’t be absurd!”

“Is it so absurd–under the circumstances?”

“You can sleep quite well if you only try.”

She went out into the hall again, her chin well up. Then she hesitated, turned and came swiftly back into the room.

“If I do,” she said rather breathlessly, “will you go to sleep? And will you promise to hold your arms up over your head?”

“But my arms—-“

“Over your head!”

He obeyed at that, and the next moment she had bent over him in the darkness; and quickly, lightly, deliciously, she kissed–the tip of his nose!

IV

She was quite cheerful the next day and entirely composed. Neither of them referred to the episode of the night before, but Billy Grant thought of little else. Early in the morning he asked her to bring him a hand mirror and, surveying his face, tortured and disfigured by the orderly’s shaving, suffered an acute wound in his vanity. He was glad it had been dark or she probably would not have—- He borrowed a razor from the interne and proceeded to enjoy himself.

Propped up in his chair, he rioted in lather, sliced a piece out of his right ear, and shaved the back of his neck by touch, in lieu of better treatment. This done, and the ragged and unkempt hair over his ears having been trimmed in scallops, due to the work being done with curved surgical scissors, he was his own man again.

That afternoon, however, he was nervous and restless. The Nurse was troubled. He avoided the subject that had so obsessed him the day before, was absent and irritable, could not eat, and sat in his chair by the window, nervously clasping and unclasping his hands.

The Nurse was puzzled, but the Staff Doctor, making rounds that day, enlightened her.

“He has pulled through–God and you alone know how,” he said. “But as soon as he begins to get his strength he’s going to yell for liquor again. When a man has been soaking up alcohol for years—- Drat this hospital cooking anyhow! Have you got any essence of pepsin?”