"You sure don't look like a spring chicken in the cold, gray dawn,
Harpe," she said aloud as she made a wry face and ran out her tongue.
"Bilious! A dose of nux vomica for you. That mixed stuff does knock a
fellow's stomach out and no mistake. Moses! I look fierce."
Her head ached dully, her mouth and throat felt parched, and yet withal
she had a feeling of contentment the reason for which did not
immediately penetrate her dull consciousness. She realized only that
some agreeable happening had left her with a sensation of warmth about
her heart.
As she fumbled on the floor for hair-pins, yawning sleepily until her
jaws cracked, she wondered what it was. She stopped in the midst of
twisting her loose hair and her face lighted in sudden recollection.
Ogden Van Lennop! Ah, that was it. She remembered now. She had broken
down his prejudice; she had partially won him over; she had been the
"hit" of the evening; further conquests were in sight and within easy
reach if she played her cards right. And Essie Tisdale--her long upper
lip stretched in its mirthless smile--she would not have her feelings
this morning for a goodly sum.
The thought of Van Lennop accelerated her movements. She must get back
to the hotel before Crowheart was astir, for it might be her ill-luck to
bump into Van Lennop starting on one of his early morning rides. She
had no desire that he should see her in her present plight.
The closeness of the illy-ventilated hospital, with its odors of
disinfectants and sickness, nauseated her slightly as she opened the
door and stepped into the hallway. She frowned at the delirious
mutterings of a typhoid patient at the end of the corridor, for it
reminded her of a threatening epidemic in one of the camps. The sharper
moans of Billy Duncan, whose inflamed and swollen arm was wringing from
him ejaculations of pain, recalled vaguely to her mind something of the
incident of the night before.
Hearing her step, he called aloud as she passed the door--
"Won't somebody give me a drink? Please, please give me a drink! I'm
choked!"
"Nell will be up directly," she answered over her shoulder. There was no
time to lose, for the day was coming fast.
She lifted her torn and trailing flounce and pulled her cloak about her
bare shoulders as she opened the street door. The air felt good upon her
hot forehead and she breathed deep of it. The East was pink now, but the
town was still as silent as the grave save for the sound of escaping
steam from the early morning train. Happening to glance toward the
station, something in the appearance of a man carrying a suitcase across
the cinders attracted her attention and caused her to slacken her pace.
It looked like Ogden Van Lennop. It _was_ Ogden Van Lennop. He was
leaving! What did it mean? Her air-castles collapsed with a thud which
left her limp.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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