On the Firing Line Part 16

Thoughtfully she bent forward, straightened the coverings above his wounded leg; then sat up again. Then she shook her head a little regretfully.

"No," she said. "I am afraid I don't understand. Perhaps it is because I am selfish; but I usually feel as if I made my plans, regardless of Fate."

"What about our meeting here?" he asked quizzically.

She answered in the same tone.

"Wait until we see what comes out of it. Fate, if one believes in such a thing, only works in an endless chain."

"And the broken links?"

"According to your notion, there should be none," she retorted.

"Fate ought to be a better workman than that."

"Than what?"

"Than spoiling her work as she goes along. If there's any chain at all, it should be endless and durable. But a man with a Mauser hole in his leg and a fever in his head has no business to be talking of Fate. Let's talk about Ethel, instead."

He settled himself back comfortably.

"Perhaps it amounts to the same thing, in the long run."

"Perhaps. I don't see how, though. Anyway, Ethel wouldn't be pleased with the notion. She is absolutely independent, and generally arranges things according to her own sweet will."

"Where is she now?"

"In Cape Town," Alice answered, quite unaware of her own lack of truth.

"And well?"

"Gloriously. In fact, as far as I can learn, Cooee always is well.

Just now she is having a wonderfully gay time. Since Lord Roberts went back to England, Cape Town has been full of people, resting there before sailing for home."

"Resting?"

"Haven't they earned the right?" she questioned, in swift challenge to the quiet scorn in his tone.

"Even if the battles are over, the fighting isn't," he answered tersely. "The glory doesn't lie entirely in the pulverizing the Boer army; there's a little left for the men who are sweeping up the pieces."

Her trained eye saw the rising color in his face. Swiftly she changed the subject.

"Glory for all, enough and to spare," she replied. "But, as I say, Cape Town is crowded with officers, lying up for repairs, and Ethel is queen bee among them. It's not only for herself; it is what you would call Fate. She happens to be the only girl of her set who is just out from London; she had met a good many of them there, and now she is holding a veritable salon. She even has one sacred teacup, set up on a high shelf ever since the day that Baden-Powell used it."

Weldon smiled.

"Miss Dent is a hero-worshipper," he commented.

"So are we all, in certain directions. Moreover, most women like their heroes to have a little personality. One can't make one's admiration stick to a blank wall of impersonal perfection."

Weldon's mind moved swiftly backwards to two blue, black-fringed eyes glowing out from a dust-streaked face.

"No," he a.s.sented; "but neither can one ever really be chums with his hero. Or, even if he can, he doesn't care to try the experiment."

Alice glanced at her watch, rose, then lingered.

"I am not so sure of that," she replied thoughtfully. "I want the pedestal of my hero to be a low one; and Cooee declares that she wishes no pedestal at all. If her hero is worthy of the name, he must bear inspection even from above. The worst flaw of all might lurk in the very crown of his head."

Half an hour later, she came back again.

"Mr. Weldon, do you feel strong enough to see Kruger Bobs for exactly five minutes?" she asked.

The gray eyes lighted.

"For ten times five," he answered eagerly.

Kruger Bobs shuffled in upon the heels of an orderly. Under his bristly hair, his face was a study of mingled emotions which culminated in his mouth. A grin of pure happiness had drawn up the upper lip; at sight of his prostrate master, the lower one was rolling outward in a sudden wave of pure pity. Beside the cot, he halted and stood looking down at Weldon with eyes which, for the moment, transformed his lazy, jolly, simian face into a species of n.o.bility. Lying back on his pillow, Weldon waited for him to speak, waited with an odd, restless beating of the heart for which he was wholly at a loss to account.

The pause between them lengthened. At last Kruger Bobs drew his mangy brown felt hat across his eyes.

"I's here, Boss," he said simply.

However, it was enough.

The next morning found Weldon sitting up. A clean-cut hole through the flesh of a man who has lived a clean-cut life is swift in healing. Now that his fever had left him, his superb vitality was a.s.serting itself once more, and he rallied quickly. Meanwhile, it was good to be able to sit up and eat his breakfast like a civilized being. Weldon had all the detestation of the average healthy being for invalid ways. Moreover, he longed to be up and doing. With his growing strength, the orderly, noiseless routine of the hospital came upon his nerves. One of the nurses always walked on the points of her toes; and he was conscious of a wild longing to throw a pillow at her, as she went diddling to and fro past him, a dozen times a day. The doctor, a man of iron nerve and velvet hand, was a daily delight to him. And there was always Alice, frank, friendly and altogether enjoyable. During the past three days, their liking had grown apace. Absolutely feminine, yet with the healthy impersonality of a growing boy, Alice Mellen was a born comrade, and Weldon enjoyed her just as, in her place, he would have enjoyed Carew.

She came down the ward, that morning, and paused beside his chair.

"You look like your old self at last," she said, as she held out her hand in congratulation.

"I might echo your words," he answered, while he looked up into her eyes, shining with merriment and with something that yet seemed to him closely akin to annoyance. "Granted the ap.r.o.n, you might be pouring tea at home."

"Not tea; but malted milk, in these latter days," she said, laughing. "But I am about to retire from your case. May I introduce your new nurse, Mr. Weldon?"

His reluctant a.s.sent was changed to eager greeting. Light, swift steps came down the room; a tall figure stopped at his side in the full glare of a sunshiny window which all at once seemed focussing its light upon waving strands and heaped-up coils of vivid yellow hair.

"Cooee!" Then, too late, he bethought himself of his manners and tried to bite the word off short.

Linking her arm in that of her cousin, the girl stood looking down at him with merry, mocking blue eyes.

"Invalids are supposed to have privileges denied to well men," she answered demurely. "It might perhaps be Cooee here, to-day; but it will have to be Miss Dent, to-morrow, when you are back in the field again. After all, it is hardly worth while to make the change, Trooper Weldon."

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Upon one side, at least, the meeting between the two cousins on the previous night had been wholly unexpected.