The Rain-Girl. Herbert George Jenkins
"Damn your professional experience," snapped Beresford, then he laughed.
"But what are you going to do?" persisted Tallis.
"You're as bad as Aunt Caroline. She always wants to plan a destiny as if it were a dinner."
"But that does not answer my question."
"It doesn't," agreed Beresford, "because there's no answer. When the time comes I shall decide."
They smoked on in silence, and Tallis did not again refer to the subject. The conversation, however, remained in Beresford's mind for several days. The conspiracy against him seemed widespread. Why had there always been this curious strain in him, a sort of unrest, an undefined expectancy? Was he in reality mad? Was he, indeed, pursuing a shadow? In any case he would prove it for himself. He was not to be deterred by this ridiculous, level-headed sawbones with his sententious babble about Nature, justice and clemency. It was true he had been unlucky enough to get pneumonia. Other men had done the same without the circumstance being contorted into an absurd theory that the whole forces of the universe were being directed against them.
Then there was the Rain-Girl. Why had he been so detestably unlucky as to fall ill on the night of meeting her? She was a unique creature, and those eyes! She had charm too, there was something Pagan about her, and her wonderful gurgling laugh; but she had said he was all wrong, and she certainly had nothing in common with Aunt Caroline.
Each day his determination to see the girl grew stronger. She had cast a spell over him. She had fascinated him. She cared for the things that he cared for. He must see her again. He would see her again—but how? At this juncture he generally lay back in his chair, or bed, and gave up the problem until he were stronger and better able to grapple with it.
Once there had come over him an unreasoning anger at her heartlessness. Knowing that a fellow-guest at the hotel was ill, even if only with a chill, a strictly humanitarian woman would have been touched by pity; but were women humanitarian? Had she heard he was ill? In a novel she would have stayed, nursed him back to health, and he would have married her.
This line of reasoning invariably ended in his laughing at his own folly in expecting an acquaintance to act as if she were an intimate friend, and wanting real life to approach the romantic standard of the novelist. That had been the trouble all along. He had asked too much of life.
She was so wonderful, that Rain-Girl. She was a tramp; yet carried with her a soft, feminine frock and had once played the concertina with which to woo the great god Pan! How astonished Olympus must have been at the sight. Why did he want to see her again? Why did life seem somehow to revolve round her? Why, above all, oh! why, a thousand times why, did her face keep presenting itself to his waking vision? In dreams she was paramount, that was understandable, but——
"When a man has a few hundred pounds between himself and the Great Adventure, it's better for him not to think about a girl."
"On the contrary, my dear fellow, it's just the moment when he should begin to think seriously about her."
Beresford had unconsciously uttered his thoughts aloud, as he stood at the window, watching the sun through the pine-wood opposite, and Tallis entering unheard, had answered him.
"Now it's you who are the idealist," smiled Beresford.
"If a doctor has an eye for anything but a microbe, he'll recognise that love is a great healer. Don't look for health in a phial or a retort; but in an affinity."
"Drewitt says that an affinity is like a hair-shirt; it enables you to realise the soul through the medium of the senses."
"That's a very poor epigram. Some day you'll discover it for yourself." Tallis drew his pipe from his pocket and proceeded to fill it from Beresford's pouch that lay on the table.
"I suppose," remarked Beresford presently, "that there's nothing, no law, convention or unrepealed statute in the Defense of the Realm Act by which you can insist on my going to Folkestone."
Tallis shook his head and proceeded to light his pipe.
"Then I shall go to London," announced Beresford with decision.
Tallis puffed vigorously at his pipe; but made no comment.
"I said I shall go to London," repeated Beresford.
"You did."
"Then why the devil can't you say something about it?"
"There's nothing to be said," was the smiling retort. "May I ask why you have come to this decision?"
"I'm sick of the country. It's—it's so infernally monotonous," he added somewhat lamely.
Tallis nodded his head comprehendingly.
"Why on earth can't you say something?" snapped Beresford. "You know you think I'm an ass, why on earth can't you tell me so?"
"You might let me know your address when you get settled," said Tallis, ignoring his patient's petulance. "I'd like to keep in touch with you."
"I shall stay at the Ritz-Carlton," announced Beresford, covertly watching Tallis to see the effect of the announcement upon him.
"The Ritz-Carlton," repeated Tallis, without any show of surprise. "I believe they do you rather well there," he remarked quietly. "I suppose she's going to stay there."
"She! Who?" Beresford started up and looked across at Tallis in astonishment.
"The girl with the eyes."
Beresford laughed. "It's no good trying to keep anything from you," he cried. "She's going to stay there, and I must see her again. What has happened I don't know; but she seems to have changed the whole universe for me. How it's all going to end, God only knows," he added gloomily. "All I know is that I must see her again. The thing is when can I start?"
For a few minutes Tallis smoked in silence, obviously thinking deeply, at last he spoke.
"I think perhaps you're right, Beresford. It will have to be London. It would be no use your going to Folkestone in the flesh, if you were in London in the spirit. I think a week or ten days might see you fit to travel, provided you take care."
"Oh! I shall be ready before then, now that whistling-jackass has gone."
"The whistling-jackass?" queried the doctor quickly.
"The nurse. How you can expect any one to get well with that girl about the place, I can't conceive. She did nothing but whistle and talk."
"Did she?" It was obvious that Tallis was making a mental note of the nurse's weakness. "Yes," he continued, "in ten days, or a fortnight at the outside, you'll be fit to travel, provided you take care."
"And what exactly does taking care imply? Does it mean a hot-water bottle and a chest-protector, goloshes and Jaeger underwear?" demanded Beresford irritably.
"You will be weak and easily fatigued. Don't overtire or over-excite yourself, be careful of your diet, keep off spirits and take a good red wine, and generally go slow for a little time," said Tallis professionally.
"But I won't go to Folkestone." There was the note of a rebellious child in Beresford's voice.
"So I understand," said Tallis. "By the way, I shall be running up to town in July, and I'll look you up."
"I wish you would," said Beresford heartily. "I don't want to lose sight of you either. You're such a comic sort of devil, although why you should conceive the diabolical idea of dragging me back resisting to this world I can't conceive. You're just as bad as that colonial Tommy, who risked his own life, and jolly nearly lost it too, merely that I might be involved in the further trouble and expense of living."
CHAPTER IV THE CALL OF THE RAIN-GIRL