Dodo's Daughter Part 40

Hugh frowned for a moment; then his face cleared again.

"I see," he said. "Bright, aren't I? Aunt Dodo, I have certainly woke up this morning. You look real, do you know; before I was never quite certain about you. You looked as if you might be a good forgery, but spurious. Have a cigarette, and why shouldn't I?"

"Wiser not," said Nurse Bryerley laconically.

Hugh's briskness did not seem to be entirely good-natured.

"How on earth could a cigarette hurt me?" he said. "Perhaps it would be wiser for Lady Chesterford not to smoke either. Aunt Dodo, you mustn't smoke. Wiser not."

Nurse Bryerley smiled with secret content.

"That's right, Mr. Graves," she said. "I like to see my patients irritable. It always shows they are getting better."

"I should have thought you might have seen that without annoying me,"

said Hugh.

"Well, well, I don't mind your having one cigarette to keep Lady Chesterford company," said the nurse. "But you'll be disappointed."

Dodo took out her case as Nurse Bryerley left the room. "Here you are, Hughie," she said.

Hugh lit one, and blew a cloud of smoke through his nostrils.

"Are they quite fresh, Aunt Dodo?" he said.

"Yes, dear, quite. Doesn't it taste right?"

"Yes, delicious," said Hugh, absolutely determined not to find it disappointing. "I say, what a sunny morning!"

"Is it too much in your eyes?"

"It is rather. Will you ask Nurse Bryerley to pull the blind down? Why should you?"

"Chiefly, dear, because it isn't any trouble."

Dodo pulled down the blind too far on the first attempt to be pleasing, not far enough on the second. Hugh felt she was very clumsy.

"Isn't Nadine coming to see me this morning?" he asked. "But I daresay she is tired of sitting with me every day."

Dodo came back to her chair by the bed again.

"She went off with Jack to Winston this morning," she said. "Just for a change. She was very much tired and overdone. You've been a fearful anxiety to her, you dear bad boy."

Hugh put his cigarette down and shut his mouth, as if firmly determined never to speak again.

"She came in to say good-by to you," she said, "but you were asleep and they didn't want to wake you."

There was still dead silence on Hugh's part.

"It was only settled she should go yesterday," she continued, "and she had to be persuaded. But Jack wanted one of us, and, as I say, she was very much overdone. Now I'm not the least overdone. So I stopped. But I wish she could have seen how much more yourself you were when you woke to-day."

At length Hugh spoke.

"What is the use of telling me that sort of tale?" he said. "She is going to be married to Seymour in a few days. She has gone away for that. I suppose in some cold-blooded way she thought it better to sneak off without telling me. No doubt it was very tactful of her."

Dodo turned round towards him.

"No, Hughie, you are quite wrong," she said. "Nadine is not going to marry Seymour at all."

Hugh lifted his right hand, and examined it cursorily. A long cut, now quite healed, ran up the length of his forefinger.

"I see," he said. "She said she would marry Seymour in order to get rid of me, and now that I have been got rid of in other ways, she has no further use for him. Isn't that it?"

His face had become quite white, and the hand with the healed wound trembled so violently that the bed shook.

"No, that is not it," said Dodo quietly. "And don't be so nervous and fidgety, my dear."

Suddenly the trembling ceased.

"Aunt Dodo, if it is not that, what is it?" he asked, in a voice that would have melted Rhadamanthus.

She turned a shining face on him, and laid her hand on his.

"Oh, Hughie, lie still and get well," she said. "And then ask Nadine herself. She will come back when you want her. She told Nurse Bryerley to tell you so, if you asked."

Hugh moved across his other hand, so that Dodo's lay between his.

"I must ask you one more thing," he said. "Is it because of me in any way that she chucked Seymour? I entreat you to say 'no' if it is 'no.'"

"I can't say 'no,'" said Dodo.

Hugh drew one long sobbing breath.

"It's mere pity then," he said. "Nadine always liked me, and she was always impulsive like that. I daresay she won't marry him till I'm better, if I am ever better. She will wait till I am strong enough to enjoy it thoroughly."

Dodo interrupted him.

"Hughie, don't say bitter and untrue things like that," she said. "And don't feel them. She is not going to marry Seymour, either now or afterwards."

Once again Hugh was silent, and after an interval Dodo spoke, divining exactly what was in his irritable convalescent mind.

"I have never deceived you before, Hughie," she said, "and you have no right to distrust me now. I am telling you the truth. I also tell you the truth when I say you must get bitter thoughts out of your mind. Ah, my dear, it is not always easy. There's a beast within each of us."

"There's a beast within me," said Hugh.

"And there's a dear brave fellow whom I am so proud of," said Dodo.

Hugh's lip quivered, but there was a quality in his silence as different from that which had gone before, as there was between his callings for Nadine on the night when she fought death for him.