That part of him which seemed to fit his reddish Irish coloring she knew least; she was afraid of it, yet more anxious to explore—this was his more masculine side: the other part, the trained part, the consideration in the polite eyes, she expropriated without question, as most women did.
“At least this institution has been good for languages,” said Nicole.
“I’ve spoken French with two doctors, and German with the nurses, and Italian, or something like it, with a couple of scrub- women and one of the patients, and I’ve picked up a lot of Spanish from another.”
“That’s fine.”
He tried to arrange an attitude but no logic seemed forthcoming.
“—Music too.
Hope you didn’t think I was only interested in ragtime.
I practise every day—the last few months I’ve been taking a course in Zurich on the history of music.
In fact it was all that kept me going at times—music and the drawing.”
She leaned suddenly and twisted a loose strip from the sole of her shoe and then looked up.
“I’d like to draw you just the way you are now.”
It made him sad when she brought out her accomplishments for his approval.
“I envy you.
At present I don’t seem to be interested in anything except my work.”
“Oh, I think that’s fine for a man,” she said quickly.
“But for a girl I think she ought to have lots of minor accomplishments and pass them on to her children.”
“I suppose so,” said Dick with deliberated indifference.
Nicole sat quiet.
Dick wished she would speak so that he could play the easy role of wet blanket, but now she sat quiet.
“You’re all well,” he said.
“Try to forget the past; don’t overdo things for a year or so.
Go back to America and be a debutante and fall in love—and be happy.”
“I couldn’t fall in love.”
Her injured shoe scraped a cocoon of dust from the log on which she sat.
“Sure you can,” Dick insisted.
“Not for a year maybe, but sooner or later.”
Then he added brutally:
“You can have a perfectly normal life with a houseful of beautiful descendants.
The very fact that you could make a complete comeback at your age proves that the precipitating factors were pretty near everything.
Young woman, you’ll be pulling your weight long after your friends are carried off screaming.”
—But there was a look of pain in her eyes as she took the rough dose, the harsh reminder.
“I know I wouldn’t be fit to marry any one for a long time,” she said humbly.
Dick was too upset to say any more.
He looked out into the grain field trying to recover his hard brassy attitude.
“You’ll be all right—everybody here believes in you.
Why, Doctor Gregory is so proud of you that he’ll probably—”
“I hate Doctor Gregory.”
“Well, you shouldn’t.”
Nicole’s world had fallen to pieces, but it was only a flimsy and scarcely created world; beneath it her emotions and instincts fought on.
Was it an hour ago she had waited by the entrance, wearing her hope like a corsage at her belt?
. . . Dress stay crisp for him, button stay put, bloom narcissus— air stay still and sweet.
“It will be nice to have fun again,” she fumbled on.
For a moment she entertained a desperate idea of telling him how rich she was, what big houses she lived in, that really she was a valuable property—for a moment she made herself into her grandfather, Sid Warren, the horse-trader.
But she survived the temptation to confuse all values and shut these matters into their Victorian side-chambers—even though there was no home left to her, save emptiness and pain.
“I have to go back to the clinic.
It’s not raining now.”
Dick walked beside her, feeling her unhappiness, and wanting to drink the rain that touched her cheek.
“I have some new records,” she said.
“I can hardly wait to play them.
Do you know—”