Leerie Part 10

Leerie's voice called him back. "Don't go--want you. Something I was trying to get Miss Max to promise."

This time Miss Maxwell colored. "It's against rules, Leerie, to talk over hospital matters before patients, even as discreet a one as Mr. Brooks."

"I know--can't help it--need him. Besides, he's his best friend." She turned to Peter with a strained eagerness. "This will be news to you.

Doctor Dempsy is due here in the morning--taken suddenly--major operation--nurse just wired. I want you and Miss Max to take him on to the Dentons if he can stand the trip. Awfully delicate operation, and it's Doctor John's crack piece of work. Will you do it?"

The unexpectedness of the news and the request overwhelmed Peter's usually agile intelligence. He stared blankly at the girl before him. "I don't think I understand. If Dempsy is coming here for an operation, why should we take him somewhere else? Why shouldn't he be operated on here if he wants to be?"

"He thinks Doctor Jefferson is still operating. He doesn't know--"

The superintendent of nurses interrupted her. "Leerie, you're overstepping even your privileges. Doctor Brainard was called here to take charge because the management had absolute confidence in his skill and knew he was trustworthy and conscientious. I think there is nothing further that needs to be said. Doctor Dempsy will do what every other patient has done, put himself unreservedly into Doctor Brainard's hands."

"But he mustn't." The crimson had died out of Sheila's cheeks, and she stood now pale to the very lips, her face working convulsively. "You don't seem to understand, and it's hard--hard to put it into words. Doctor Brainard is young--very young for his position and all the responsibility that has been heaped upon him. His work ever since he came has been terrific--eight and ten majors a day, Sundays, too. It's been a fearful strain, and now to make him responsible for a case like Doctor Dempsy, a case that takes great delicacy and nerve, one that is bound to attack his sympathy and his reputation at the same time, why--why, it isn't fair.

Can't you see that if he should fail, no matter how blameless he might be, it would stick to him for the rest of his life, a blot on his work and the San?" Sheila's hands went out in a last appeal. "Send him to the Dentons; they've had five years of experience for every year of Doctor Brainard's.

Please, please! Oh, don't you see?"

"Why should you care so much?" The words were off Peter's tongue before he knew it. He would have given a good deal if he could have got them back.

The girl looked from him to Miss Maxwell. The question apparently bewildered her. Then a hint of her old-time dignity and a.s.surance returned, coupled with her cryptic mood. "Plenty of reasons: he was Miss Max's chief--she always worshiped him--your best friend, a most loved and honored man in the profession. Isn't he? Well, this isn't the time or the place for a risk."

The superintendent rose and looked down at the girl. When she spoke there was a touch of annoyance in the tone as well as sadness. "And that's as much--and as little--as you expect to tell us?"

Sheila nodded.

Miss Maxwell threw up her hands in a little gesture of helplessness.

"Leerie, Leerie, what are we going to do with you? It was this way even three years ago."

In a flash the girl's arms were about the superintendent's neck, her face buried on her shoulder; the words were barely audible to Peter, "Love me and believe in me--as you did three years ago." And then a choking, wet-eyed, and rather disheveled figure flew past him, out of the room.

Miss Maxwell sank back heavily into her chair; her face showed plainly her battling between love for the girl, her sense of outraged discipline, and her anxiety over the decision she must make. Peter watched her with a sort of impersonal sympathy; the major part of his being had been plunged into what seemed a veritable chasm of hopelessness. He tried to pull himself together and realize that there was Dempsy to think about.

"What are you going to do?" he asked, at last.

"Do? You mean--about--?"

Peter nodded.

An almost pathetic smile crept into the superintendent's face. "As long as you were here, anyway, it's rather a relief to be able to confess that I don't know what to do. You see, superintendents are always supposed to have infallible judgment on all matters," she sighed. "I have never but once known Leerie to break a rule or ask for a special dispensation without a reason--a good reason. But I don't understand what lies behind all this."

"I do." Peter fairly roared it forth. "She loves that man, and she's afraid this might ruin his career if--if anything happened. Why, it's as plain as these four walls and the ceiling above us. No woman pleads for a man that way unless she loves him better than anything else on G.o.d's earth."

"I think you're wrong."

"Why?" Peter strode over to the superintendent's desk like a man after his reprieve. "I'm not just curious. I've the biggest excuse in the world for wanting to know why she has asked this. I love Sheila O'Leary. I love her well enough to leave her to-night with the man she loves, provided he loves her. But if he doesn't--if he's just playing with her, accepting her as a sop to his vanity, as a lot of near-famous men will with a woman--then, by thunder! I'm going to stay and fight him for her!

Understand?" And Peter's fist pounded the desk.

The superintendent smiled again. This time there was no pathos in it. "I understand--and I'd stay. You ought to know Leerie well enough by this time to know that she can fight for the right of anything, whether she cares personally or not, and more than that, even if she has to suffer for it herself. She's the only woman I have ever known who had that particular kind of heroism. If she felt Doctor Brainard needed some one to stand up for him, I believe she could plead better if she didn't care. And I've another, a better reason for thinking she doesn't love him. She refused at first to be his surgical nurse. She didn't consent until she knew that he had made that one of the conditions of his coming here; he stipulated that he must be allowed to bring his own anesthetist, operate without an a.s.sistant, and choose his own operating nurse."

"And he choose her?"

"She is the best we have. Not using an a.s.sistant throws a tremendous responsibility and strain on the nurse, and Doctor Brainard naturally wanted the most expert one he could get."

"Then there was nothing personal--"

"I don't think so. Doctor Brainard has a strong influence over Leerie, but I believe it is only what any surgeon with distinction and power would have. If she really cared for Doctor Brainard, she wouldn't have said what she did when I asked her to take the appointment."

"What did she say?" Peter leaned forward eagerly and gripped the edge of the desk.

"She said she would rather be suspended for three more years than do it, but if there was no one else, she guessed she could manage it for the honor of the San."

"What did she mean?"

"Oh, that's just a by-phrase among those of us who have worked here a long while and feel a certain loyalty and responsibility for the ideals of this inst.i.tution. We have tried to stand for honest, humane work as against mere moneygrubbing and popularity."

"I see. That's why Dempsy sent me here; that's why he's coming himself.

Thank you, Miss Maxwell. I hope you're right." Peter straightened himself and moved toward the door.

"Wait a minute, Mr. Brooks. How much do you know of what happened three years ago?"

"Just what has dripped from the wagging tongues." Peter smiled ironically.

"Suppose I tell you the truth of it. It might help you to fight this thing through. It certainly couldn't hurt your love for Leerie if you really love her."

"Nothing could," said Peter, simply.

"Doctor Brainard and Leerie were the very best of friends during the years she was training and he was working under Doctor Jefferson. Then I thought it was love; they were always together, and there seemed to be a strong, deep sympathy between the two. Just about the time she graduated things began to go awry. Doctor Brainard was on the verge of a nervous breakdown and Leerie seemed to be laboring under some bad mental strain. Then the nurses began to hint that Leerie had been going to his room. One night, when she was head night nurse in the Surgical and Miss Jacobs was fourth corridor nurse, Miss Jacobs called me up at two in the morning and told me Leerie had been in Doctor Brainard's room for an hour. I came at once and found her there. She made no explanation, offered no excuses. She even acknowledged that she had been there twice before at the same time."

"What did Brainard say?" Peter asked it through clenched teeth.

"Nothing then. But later, when he was called before the Board, he laughed and asked what a man could say when a nurse chose to come to his room at two in the morning."

"The cad!" and Peter swore under his breath.

"I should have believed in Leerie, anyway, but it was that laugh of Doctor Brainard's that made me determined to fight for her. What motive Doctor Brainard had for not defending her I don't know, but he acted like a scoundrel."

"But why?" Peter beat the air. "Oh, the girl must have known she couldn't run amuck with convention that way and not have it hurt her! Why did she do it?"

The superintendent of nurses looked long and thoughtfully at him. "Do you know, Mr. Brooks, if I happened to be the man who loved Sheila O'Leary, I think I'd find that out as soon as I could. The answer might prove valuable; it might solve the riddle why Sheila doesn't want Doctor Dempsy operated on here."

"Well, is he going to be?"

"No, we'll take him on to the Dentons if he can be moved again after he gets here."

But fate willed otherwise. When Doctor Dempsy arrived on the early train there were no conflicting opinions as to his condition; it was critical, and there would have to be an operation within twenty-four hours. Miss Maxwell brought the news to Peter along with the doctor's wish that his friend should be with him as long as the powers allowed.

"Does Leerie know?" asked Peter.

"She was present at the consultation."