The Witness Part 13

And of course you can't afford to buy expensive silk stockings!"

One by one Gila had pulled the things out of the box, rattling on about them as if she were selling corn-cure. She was a trifle excited, to be sure, now that she was fairly launched on her philanthropic expedition; also the fact that the two women in the room were absolutely silent and gave no hint of how they were going to take this tide of insults was somewhat disconcerting. However, Gila was not easily disconcerted. She was very angry, and her anger had been growing in force all night. The greatest insult that man could offer her had been heaped upon her by Courtland, and there was no punishment too great to be meted out to the unfortunate innocent who had been the occasion of it. Gila did not care what she said, and she had no fear of any consequences whatever. There had not, so far to her knowledge, lived the man who could not be called back and humbled to her purpose after she had punished him sufficiently for any offense he might knowingly or unknowingly have committed. That she really had begun to admire Courtland, and to desire him in some degree for her own, only added fuel to her fire. This girl whom he had dared to pity should be burned and tortured; she should be insulted and extinguished utterly, so that she would never dare to lift her head again within recognizable distance of Paul Courtland, or she would know the reason why. Paul Courtland was _hers_--if she chose to have him; let no other girl dare to look at him!

The nurse stood, starched and stern, with growing indignation at the audacity of the stranger. Only the petrification of absolute astonishment, and wonder as to what would happen next, took her off her guard for the moment and prevented her from ousting the young lady from the premises instantly. There was also the magic name of the handsome young gentleman that had been used as pa.s.sword, and the very slight possibility that this might be some rich relative of the lovely young patient that she would not like to have put out. The nurse looked from Bonnie to the visitor in growing wrath and perplexity.

Bonnie lay wide-eyed and amazed, startled bewilderment and growing dignity in her face. Two soft, pink spots of color began to bloom out in her cheeks, and her eyes took on a twinkle of amus.e.m.e.nt. She was watching the visitor as if she were a pa.s.sing Punch-and-Judy show come in to play for a moment for her entertainment. She lay and regarded her and her tawdry display of finery with a quiet, disinterested aloofness that was beginning to get on Gila's nerves.

"You can have my flowers, too, if you want them," said Gila, excitedly, seeing that her flood of insult had brought forth no answering word from either listener. "They're very handsome, rare ones--orchids, you know.

Did you ever see any before? I don't mind leaving them with you because I have a great many flowers, and these were given me by a young man I don't care in the least about."

She unpinned the flowers and held them out to Bonnie, but the sick girl lay still and regarded her with that quiet, half-amused gravity and did not offer to take them.

"I presume you can find a waste-basket down in the office if you want to get rid of them," said Bonnie, suddenly, in a clear, refined voice. "I really shouldn't care for them. Isn't there a waste-basket somewhere about?" she asked, turning toward the nurse.

"Down in the hall by the front entrance," answered the nurse, grimly.

She was ready to play up to whatever cue Bonnie gave her.

Gila stood haughtily holding her flowers and looking from one woman to the other, unable to believe that any other woman had the insufferable audacity to meet her on her own ground in this way. Were they actually guying her, or were they innocents who really thought she did not want the flowers, or who did not know enough to think orchids beautiful?

Before she could decide Bonnie was speaking again, still in that quiet, superior tone of a lady that gave her the command of the situation:

"I am sorry," she said, quite politely, as if she must let her visitor down gently, "but I'm afraid you have made some mistake. I don't recall ever having met you before. It must be some other Miss Brentwood for whom you are looking."

Gila stared, and her color suddenly began to rise even under the pearly tint of her flesh. Had she possibly made some blunder? This certainly was the voice of a lady. And the girl on the bed had the advantage of absolute self-control. Somehow that angered Gila more than anything else.

"Don't you know Paul Courtland?" she demanded, imperiously.

"I never heard the name before!"

Bonnie's voice was steady, and her eyes looked coolly into the other girl's. The nurse looked at Bonnie and marveled. She knew the name of Paul Courtland well; she telephoned to that name every day. How was it that the girl did not know it? She liked this girl and the man who had brought her here and been so anxious about her. But who on earth was this huzzy in fur?

Gila looked at Bonnie madly. Her stare said as plainly as words could have done: "You lie! You _do_ know him!" But Gila's lips said, scornfully, "Aren't you the poor girl whose kid brother got killed by an automobile in the street?"

Across Bonnie's stricken face there flashed a spasm of pain and her very lips grew white.

"I thought so!" sneered Gila, rushing on with her insult. "And yet you deny that you ever heard Paul Courtland's name! He picked up the kid and carried it in the house and ran errands for you, but you don't know him!

That's grat.i.tude for you! I told him the working-cla.s.s were all like that. I have no doubt he has paid for this very room that you are lying in!"

"Stop!" cried Bonnie, sitting up, her eyes like two stars, her face white to the very lips. "You have no right to come here and talk like that! I cannot understand who could have sent you! Certainly not the courteous stranger who picked up my little brother. I do not know his name, nor anything about him, but I can a.s.sure you that I shall not allow him nor any one else to pay my bills. Now will you take your things and leave my room? I am feeling very--tired!"

The voice suddenly trailed off into silence and Bonnie dropped back limply upon the pillow.

The nurse sprang like an angry bear who has seen somebody troubling her cubs. She touched vigorously a b.u.t.ton in the wall as she pa.s.sed and swooped down upon the tawdry finery, stuffing it unceremoniously into the box; then she turned upon the little fur-trimmed lady, placed a capable arm about her slim waist, and scooped her out of the room.

Flinging the bulging box down at her feet, where it gaped widely, gushing forth in pink, blue, cerise, and silver, she shut the door and flew back to her charge.

Down the hall hurried the emergency doctor, formidable in his white-linen uniform. When Gila looked up from the confusion at her feet she encountered the gaze of a pair of grave and disapproving eyes behind a pair of fascinating tortoise-sh.e.l.l goggles. She was not accustomed to disapproval in masculine eyes and it infuriated her.

"What does all this mean?" His voice expressed a good many kinds of disapproval.

"It means that I have been insulted, sir, by one of your nurses!"

declared Gila, in her most haughty tone, with a tilt of her chin and a flirt of her fur trappings. "I shall make it my business to see that she is removed at once from her position."

The doctor eyed her mildly, as though she were a small bat squeaking at a mighty hawk. "Indeed! I fancy you will find that a rather difficult matter!" he answered, contemptuously. "She is one of our best nurses!

James!" to a pa.s.sing a.s.sistant, "escort this person and her--belongings"--looking doubtfully at the mess on the floor--"down to the street!"

Then he swiftly entered Bonnie's room, closing and fastening the door behind him.

The said James, with an ill-concealed grin, stooped to his task; and thus, in mortification, wrath, and ignominy, did Gila descend to her waiting limousine.

There were tears of anger on her cheeks as she sat back against her cushions; more tears fell, which, regardless of her pearly complexion, she wiped away with a cobweb of a handkerchief, while she sat and hated Courtland, and the whole tribe of college men, her cousin Bill Ward included, for getting her into a sc.r.a.pe like this. Defeat was a thing she could not brook. She had never, since she came out of short frocks, been so defeated in her life! But it should not be defeat! She would take her full revenge for all that had happened! Courtland should bite the dust! She would show him that he could not go around picking up stray beauties and sending her after them to pet them for him.

She did not watch for acquaintances during that ride home. She remained behind drawn curtains. Arrived at home, she stormed up to her room, giving orders to her maid not to disturb her, and sat down angrily to indite an epistle to Courtland that should bring him to his knees.

Meantime the doctor and nurse worked silently, skilfully over Bonnie until the weary eyes opened once more, and a long-drawn sigh showed that the girl had come back to the world.

By and by, when the doctor had gone out of the room and the nurse had finished giving her the beef-tea that had been ordered, Bonnie raised her eyes. "Would you mind finding out for me just what this room costs?"

she asked, wearily.

The nurse had been fixing it all up in her mind what she should say when this question came. "Why, I'm under the impression you won't have to pay anything," she said, pleasantly. "You see, sometimes patients, when they go out, are kind of grateful and leave a sort of endowment of a bed for a while, or something like that, for cases just like yours, where strangers come in for a few days and need quiet--real quiet that they can't get in the ward, you know. I believe some one paid something for this room in some kind of a way like that. I guess the doctor thought you would get well quicker if you had it quiet, so he put you in here.

You needn't worry a bit about it."

Bonnie smiled. "Would you mind making sure?" she asked. "I'd like to know just what I owe. I have a little money, you know."

The nurse nodded and slipped away to whisper the story to the grave doctor, who grew more indignant and contemptuous than he had been to Gila, and sent her promptly back with an answer.

"You don't have to pay a cent," she said, cheerfully, as she returned.

"This bed is endowed temporarily, the doctor says, to be used at his discretion, and he wants to keep you here till some one comes who needs this room more than you do. At present there isn't any one, so you needn't worry. We are not going to let any more little feather-headed spitfires in to see you, either. The doctor balled the office out like everything for letting that girl up."

Bonnie tried to smile again, but only ended in a sigh. "Oh, it doesn't matter," she said, and then, after a minute, "You've been very good to me. Some time I hope I can do something for you. Now I'm going to sleep."

The nurse went out to look after some of her duties. Half an hour later she came back to Bonnie's room and entered softly, not to waken her. She was worried lest she had left the window open too wide and the wind might be blowing on her, for it had turned a good deal colder since the sun went down.

She tiptoed to the bed and bent over in the dim light to see if her patient was all right. Then she drew back sharply.

The bed was empty!

She turned on the light and looked all around. There was no one else in the room! Bonnie was gone!

CHAPTER XIII

Wildly the nurse searched the room, throwing open the wardrobe first!

Bonnie's shabby clothes were no longer hanging on the hooks! She rushed to the window and looked helplessly along the fire-escape out into the courtyard below, where the ambulance was just bringing in a fresh case.

There was no sign of her patient. Turning back, she saw on the table a bit of paper from the daily record-sheet folded up and pinned together with a quaint little circle of old-fashioned gold in which were set tiny garnets and pearls. The note was addressed, "Miss Wright, Nurse." A five-dollar bill fell from the paper. The nurse picked it up and read:

DEAR NURSE,--I am leaving this little pin for you because you have been so good to me. It isn't very valuable, but it is all I have. The five dollars is for the room. I know it is worth more, but I haven't any more just now. You have all been very kind. Please give the money to the doctor and thank him for me. Don't worry about me; I am all right.

I just need to get back to work.