A nun with a holy face was nursing the man whose emaciated fingers stirred a rosary on the white sheet.
He was still handsome and his voice summoned up a thick burr of individuality as he spoke to Dick, after Dangeu had left them together.
“We get a lot of understanding at the end of life.
Only now, Doctor Diver, do I realize what it was all about.”
Dick waited.
“I’ve been a bad man.
You must know how little right I have to see Nicole again, yet a Bigger Man than either of us says to forgive and to pity.”
The rosary slipped from his weak hands and slid off the smooth bed covers.
Dick picked it up for him.
“If I could see Nicole for ten minutes I would go happy out of the world.”
“It’s not a decision I can make for myself,” said Dick.
“Nicole is not strong.”
He made his decision but pretended to hesitate.
“I can put it up to my professional associate.”
“What your associate says goes with me—very well, Doctor.
Let me tell you my debt to you is so large—”
Dick stood up quickly.
“I’ll let you know the result through Doctor Dangeu.”
In his room he called the clinic on the Zugersee.
After a long time Kaethe answered from her own house.
“I want to get in touch with Franz.”
“Franz is up on the mountain.
I’m going up myself—is it something I can tell him, Dick?”
“It’s about Nicole—her father is dying here in Lausanne.
Tell Franz that, to show him it’s important; and ask him to phone me from up there.”
“I will.”
“Tell him I’ll be in my room here at the hotel from three to five, and again from seven to eight, and after that to page me in the dining-room.”
In plotting these hours he forgot to add that Nicole was not to be told; when he remembered it he was talking into a dead telephone.
Certainly Kaethe should realize.
. . . Kaethe had no exact intention of telling Nicole about the call when she rode up the deserted hill of mountain wild-flowers and secret winds, where the patients were taken to ski in winter and to climb in spring.
Getting off the train she saw Nicole shepherding the children through some organized romp.
Approaching, she drew her arm gently along Nicole’s shoulder, saying:
“You are clever with children—you must teach them more about swimming in the summer.”
In the play they had grown hot, and Nicole’s reflex in drawing away from Kaethe’s arm was automatic to the point of rudeness.
Kaethe’s hand fell awkwardly into space, and then she too reacted, verbally, and deplorably.
“Did you think I was going to embrace you?” she demanded sharply.
“It was only about Dick, I talked on the phone to him and I was sorry—”
“Is anything the matter with Dick?”
Kaethe suddenly realized her error, but she had taken a tactless course and there was no choice but to answer as Nicole pursued her with reiterated questions: “. . . then why were you sorry?”
“Nothing about Dick.
I must talk to Franz.”
“It is about Dick.”
There was terror in her face and collaborating alarm in the faces of the Diver children, near at hand.
Kaethe collapsed with:
“Your father is ill in Lausanne—Dick wants to talk to Franz about it.”
“Is he very sick?”
Nicole demanded—just as Franz came up with his hearty hospital manner.
Gratefully Kaethe passed the remnant of the buck to him—but the damage was done.
“I’m going to Lausanne,” announced Nicole.
“One minute,” said Franz.