"His pulse is very high," she said to the steward. "When did you take
his temperature?" She drew a little morocco case from her pocket and
from that took a clinical thermometer, which she shook up and down,
eying the patient meanwhile with a calm, impersonal scrutiny. The
Lieutenant raised his head and stared up at the white figure beside
his cot. His eyes opened and then shut quickly, with a startled look,
in which doubt struggled with wonderful happiness. His hand stole out
fearfully and warily until it touched her apron, and then, finding it
was real, he clutched it desperately, and twisting his face and body
toward her, pulled her down, clasping her hands in both of his, and
pressing them close to his face and eyes and lips. He put them from
him for an instant, and looked at her through his tears.
"Sweetheart," he whispered, "sweetheart, I knew you'd come."
As the nurse knelt on the deck beside him, her thermometer slipped
from her fingers and broke, and she gave an exclamation of annoyance.
The young Doctor picked up the pieces and tossed them overboard.
Neither of them spoke, but they smiled appreciatively. The Lieutenant
was looking at the nurse with the wonder and hope and hunger of soul
in his eyes with which a dying man looks at the cross the priest holds
up before him. What he saw where the German nurse was kneeling was a
tall, fair girl with great bands and masses of hair, with a head
rising like a lily from a firm, white throat, set on broad shoulders
above a straight back and sloping breast--a tall, beautiful creature,
half-girl, half-woman, who looked back at him shyly, but steadily.
Pages:
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121