Joan and Co.

When Devons regained consciousness there were a great many things he could not understand—a great many things, in fact, that, had he the strength, he would have been ready to argue could not possibly be so. Apparently he was in a big room similar to the one Arkwright had visualized for him in that hundred and fifty thousand dollar house he was to buy some day. Apparently he was in a broad, soft-mattressed bed and covered with dainty white linen, such as one might expect to find in such a home. Apparently all the other furnishings were in keeping—though he did not see them in detail, but rather sensed them as a whole. Apparently at the farther end of the room near a shaded light there was a nurse in uniform, and near her a slight, bearded man, very professional-looking. Neither of them was aware that he was studying them. Apparently they were waiting for something.

Now, manifestly, this was all a grotesque dream on Devons’s part. He closed his eyes again and tried to get back to something real. The first tangible fact in the past that he was able to get hold of was of being in Arkwright’s room and drinking there a cup of coffee. Then Arkwright had shown him those plans.

After that he had gone out somewhere. He had started for Wellington Chambers. Perhaps this was Wellington Chambers. He opened his eyes again. No; Sawyer was not here. Besides, what were these other two? When he tried to move, their presence seemed more plausible. He was sore all over, as though he had been pummeled. This helped him to recall that mysterious tooting of horns and the curious phenomenon immediately following of an extra heavy gust of wind hitting him as with a cudgel. And that was as far as he could go.

Hearing a sound from the rear of the room, he opened his eyes once more. The bearded man was coming toward him. He took Devons’s pulse and examined the pupils of his eyes and asked him how he felt.

“Sore,” replied Devons. “Where am I?”

“In the home of Mr. Fairburne,” replied the doctor.

“How did I get here?”

“Never mind that. Save your strength to answer my questions.”

So, with the nurse to assist him, the doctor felt Devons all over. In some places it hurt and in other places it did not. The doctor’s conclusion at the end of the examination was that he had a dislocated shoulder, a fractured rib, and various odds and ends of bruises.

“How did I get them?” inquired Devons.

“You ran into an automobile,” was the politic way Dr. Nichols put it.

“How did the—the auto come out?” inquired Devons, with a flickering smile.

“As usual, the machine got the better of it,” replied Nichols.

Still, the machine could not be blamed for the shockingly ill-nourished body that had withstood the blow so feebly. Because the young man seemed of the more intelligent sort, he pursued his questioning a little further, prompted by some curiosity.

“What’s been your diet lately?” he inquired.

“Bread and coffee mostly,” answered Devons.

“Didn’t you know any better?” grunted Nichols.

“Yes.”

“Then—”

He caught an amused expression in Devons’s sunken eyes.

“Oh, I see,” he went on more gently. “Well, we’ll have to get some real food into you as soon as possible.”

“Is this a hospital?” asked Devons.

“Hardly. Miss Joan Fairburne was in the machine when you stumbled in front of it. She brought you here.”

“Joan Fairburne,” muttered Devons, trying to place the name.

“She says she knew you when she was in college.”

He remembered then. She was with Mildred when she died. She had dark hair and eyes. She was very beautiful—very beautiful and very rich.

Nichols had removed his coat in businesslike fashion and was rolling up his sleeves.

“I’ve got to get that shoulder back,” he announced. “Then I’ll fix that rib in place. Better save your strength. I’ll have to give you a whiff of ether.”

The subsequent half-hour was an exceedingly unpleasant one for Devons. He was so weak that Nichols refrained from administering any more ether than was absolutely necessary, and he was both judge and jury on the question. Devons clenched his jaw and stood it, but he could not help his lips from getting white. Whenever that happened, Nichols nodded to the nurse, and she shoved a gauze sponge sprinkled with the pungent stuff beneath his nose. This set his head to swimming and made the room go round in circles.

And all during this process Nichols wound him in bandages until he felt as tied up as a mummy. Whenever they gave him a chance, he protested:

“Look here. Can’t get round in—these things.”

“I don’t intend to have you get round for some little time,” replied Nichols. “Don’t talk.”

Then how the deuce was he going to see Sawyer? How the deuce was he going—?

But it was not possible to keep a thought very long at a time. There were two of them against him, and they did whatever they pleased.

Even when they were all through, he was not any more comfortable than before. He was in a strait-jacket, and the after-effects of the ether were the usual after-effects.

After a while Nichols went off. The nurse remained. He was glad of that. She was the one sane thing in a world grown chaotic.

He must have slept at intervals during the night, because all of a sudden he was aware that it was morning. The shaded electric light had gone out and the room was suffused with the white light of day. The nurse was still there, and when he spoke to her she came over and asked how he felt.

“Punk,” he answered.

He was all tied up, for one thing. He was faint, for another. And he still tasted and smelled ether, for another.

“I’d like a cup of coffee,” he said.

“I’ll get you something better,” she answered.

After an interval out of the room she returned with the something better. Apparently their tastes differed, for it was not better. It was a hot, flabby drink, like gruel. However, he swallowed it, and it took away some of the faint feeling. Shortly he went to sleep again; and this time when he awoke he found that the nurse had grown slighter and taller and had changed the color of her hair. Or maybe it was a different nurse.

“What time is it?” he asked.

“Eleven o’clock,” she replied.

“You’re a new one?”

“I’m the day nurse.”

That was encouraging, because it proved that he was seeing things in a clearer and more normal way. He felt emboldened now to examine his room more in detail. It was an extremely satisfactory apartment. Everything in it was quite perfect and fresh. The wall-paper had little roses in it and looked as though it had been put on within a day. The bed was of mahogany with a dull finish. The dresser in the corner was new, and all the odds and ends of other things were new also. It looked like one of those windows along Fifth Avenue where such articles are displayed for sale. Only he had the feeling that on these there had never been any price tag. If ever they were paid for it had been done quietly and privately.

The linen covering him was choice. He felt it. It gave him a sense of clean luxury. It sank into him and made him wish he were shaved. If he had his razor with him he would have shaved right then, if he could manage it with his left hand. He put his fingers to his rough face to see if it could be done.

When Nichols came in, Devons asked him if he did not think it could be managed.

“I’ll have them send Jeffrey up to you,” nodded Nichols.

“Jeffrey?”

“Mr. Fairburne’s man.”

“I don’t want to put the family to any more trouble than I have. I could do it myself.”

“I doubt it. Besides, it isn’t necessary.”

“How long am I going to be here?”

“A month. Perhaps longer?”

Devons frowned.

“That’s impossible,” he replied firmly.

“Miss Fairburne is feeling very badly about you. Naturally, she wants to do everything she can under the circumstances.”

“It wasn’t her fault. You’ll tell her that and—thank her for me?”

“Certainly.”

After feeling his pulse and taking his temperature and asking a hundred or so questions, Nichols declared his patient was doing very well.

“Give him within reason all he wants to eat,” he ordered the nurse.

Devons heard him say that, or he would not have believed it. He could not remember ever having had all he wanted to eat—except in his dreams. The time Reed gave him that ten thousand dollars he had gone to Delmonico’s and ordered oysters on the half-shell, a soup, a bit of fish, a big steak with hashed-brown potatoes, and asparagus, and an ice, and concluded with coffee and cheese. Only something happened before it got to him. Probably something would happen this time.

Jeffrey came up with a “Good-morning, sir,” and several towels over his arm and a pitcher of hot water. While Devons lay on his back without moving and with his eyes closed, Jeffrey bent over him and lathered his face and shaved him as he had never been shaved before. Then he washed off the soap and applied hot towels—steaming hot towels that made him catch his breath in the joy of the tingly feeling of them. Then Jeffrey put on cold cream and rubbed it in, and after that dusted his cheeks with a sweet-scented powder. Jeffrey even combed his hair. Then quietly, softly, he stole out, leaving Devons with the hazy notion that it had all been done by magic. Feeling so fine and having nothing better to do, he went to sleep.

It was one o’clock when he awoke, and he was hungry. Now was the time to test if what Nichols had said about food was true, or not. He did not even have a chance to tell the nurse he was ready, because at that point she opened the door and came in with a tray. She placed this near him. It contained eggs on toast, little triangle pieces of toast—and a cup of cocoa with frothy whipped cream on the top of it. He tried for a moment to serve himself with his left hand; but he made such a bungling job of it that the nurse said:

“You’d better let me help you.”

So she did. He had nothing to do but open his mouth like an overgrown robin. It was absurd. Also it was deliciously effortless. And he had enough—all he wanted.

When he was through she brought from somewhere a large vase of roses and placed them on a little table by his head.

“These are from Miss Fairburne with her compliments,” said the nurse. “She hopes you are feeling comfortable.”

“Oh, Lord!” gasped Devons.