The Tin Soldier. Temple Bailey
those dreadful creatures in the fairy books. She's—she's a ghoul—"
"My dear."
"A ghoul. You should have seen her, with great chunks of bread and butter."
"Hilda has a healthy appetite."
"Of course you defend her."
"My dear child—"
"Oh you do, Daddy, always, against me—and I'm your daughter—"
She wept a tear or two into her muff, then raised her eyes to find him regarding her quizzically. "Are you going to spoil my ride?"
"You are spoiling mine."
"We won't quarrel about it. And we'll stop at Small's. Shall it be roses or violets, to-day, my dear?"
She chose violets, as more in accord with her pensive mood, lighting the bunch, however, with one red rose. The question of Hilda was not settled, but she yielded as many an older woman has yielded—to the sweetness of tribute—to man's impulse to make things right not by justice but by the bestowal of his bounty.
From the florist's, they went to Huyler's old shop on F Street, where the same girl had served Jean with ice-cream sodas and hot chocolate for fifteen years. Administrations might come and administrations go, but these pleasant clerks had been cup-bearers to them all—Presidents' daughters and diplomats' sons—the sturdy children of plain Congressmen, the scions of noble families across the seas.
It was while Jean sat on a high stool beside her father, the sunshine shining on her through the wide window, that Derry Drake, coming down Twelfth, saw her!
Well, he wanted a lemonade. And the fact that she was there in a gray squirrel coat and bunch of violets with her copper-colored hair shining over her ears wasn't going to leave him thirsty!
He went in. He bowed to the Doctor and received a smile in return. Jean's eyes were cold above her chocolate. Derry bought his check, went to a little table on the raised platform at the back of the room, drank his lemonade and hurried out.
"A nice fellow," said the Doctor, watching him through the window. "I wonder why he didn't stop and speak to us?"
"I'm glad he didn't."
"My dear, why?"
"I've found out things—"
"What things?"
"That he's a—coward," with tense earnestness. "He won't fight."
"Who told you that?"
"Everybody's saying it."
"Everybody is dead wrong."
"What do you mean, Daddy?"
"What I have just said. Everybody is dead wrong."
"How do you know?"
"A doctor knows a great many things which he is not permitted to tell. I am rather bound not to tell in this case."
"Oh, but you could tell me."
"Hardly—it was given in confidence."
"Did he? Oh, Daddy, did he tell you?"
"Yes."
"And he isn't a slacker?"
"No."
"I knew it—."
"You didn't. You thought he was a coward."
"Well, I ought to have known better. He looks brave, doesn't he?"
"I shouldn't call him exactly a heroic figure."
"Shouldn't you?"
She finished her chocolate in silence, and followed him in silence to his car. They sped up F Street, gay with its morning crowd.
Then at last it came. "Isn't it a wonderful day, Daddy?"
He smiled down at her. "There you go."
"Well, it is wonderful." She fell again into silence, then again bestowed upon him her raptures. "Wouldn't it be dreadful if we had loveless days, Daddy, as well as meatless ones and wheatless?"
That night, after Jean had gone to bed, the Doctor, having dismissed his last patient, came out of his inner office. Hilda, in her white nurse's costume, was busy with the books. He stood beside her desk. His eyes were dancing. "Jean told me about the steak."
"I knew she would—I suppose it was an awful thing to do. But I was hungry, and I hate fish—" She smiled at him lazily, then laughed.
He laughed back. He felt that it would be unbearable for Hilda to go hungry, to spoil her red and white with abstinence.
"My dear girl," he said, "what did you mean when you spoke of going away?"
"Haven't you been thinking of going?"
The color came up in his cheeks. "Yes, but how did you know it?"
"Well, a woman knows. Why don't you make up your mind?"
"There's Jean to think of."
"Emily Bridges could take care of her. And you ought to go. Men are seeing things over there that they'll never see again. And women are."
"If my country needs me—"
Hilda was cold. "I shouldn't go for that. As I told Jean, I am not making any grand stand plays. I should go for all that I get out of it, the experience, the adventure—."
He looked at her with some curiosity. Jean's words of the afternoon recurred to him. "She's a ghoul—"
Yet there was something almost fascinating in her frankness. She tore aside ruthlessly the curtain of self-deception, revealing her motives, as if she challenged him to call them less worthy than his own.
"If I go, it will be because I want to become a better nurse. I like it here, but your practice is necessarily limited. I should get a wider view of things. So would you. There would be new worlds of disease, men in all conditions of nervous shock."
"I know. But I'd hate to think I was going merely for selfish ends."
She shrugged. "Why not that as well as any other?"
He had a smouldering sense of irritation.
"When I am with Jean she makes me feel rather big and fine; when I am with you—" He paused.
"I make you see yourself as you are, a man. She thinks you are more than that."
All his laughter left ham. "It is something to be a hero to one's daughter. Perhaps some day I shall be a little better for her thinking so."
She saw that she had gone too far. "You mustn't take the things I say too seriously."
The bell of the telephone at her elbow whirred. She put the receiver to her ear. "It is General Drake's man; he thinks you'd better come over before you go to bed."
"I was afraid I might have to go. He is in rather bad shape, Hilda."
She packed his bag for him competently, and telephoned for his car. "I'll have a cup of coffee ready for you when you get back," she said, as she stood in the door. "It is going to be a dreadful night."
The streets were icy and the sleet falling. "You'd better have your overshoes," Hilda decided, and went for them.
As he put them on, she stood under the hall light, smiling. "Have you forgiven me?" she asked as he straightened up.
"For telling me the truth? Of course. You take such good care of me, Hilda."
Upstairs in her own room Jean was writing a letter. It was a very pretty room, very fresh and frilly with white dimity and with much pink and pale lavender. The night-light which shone through the rose taffeta petticoats of a porcelain lady was supplemented at the moment by a bed-side lamp which flung a ring of gold beyond Jean's blotter to the edge of the lace spread.