She directed his steps as Helen had directed them many times. The men of pain lounging in the court looking out through the holes in balls of white, watched two figures pacing in rhythmic step which was familiar when their backs were turned; but when facing them, the girl who was like a picture was in place of the picture girl. They wondered about it; wonder was a habit of their tired minds. She was beautiful, surpassingly so, soothing to the eyes, and she played Helen's part, too, by smiling at them as she passed. Her smile was more radiant than Helen's. It was a better short-acquaintance smile, one of them thought, while Helen's sent a warming, lasting glow all through you and was better for easing pain. Of the two, they would rather have Helen about every day. The men of pain were not articulate, but little that passed in the court escaped their eyes. If a sparrow lighted on a roof or a nurse appeared at a window, they knew it. Then, just as Phil and Henriette had made a turn with their backs to them, they saw Helen appear under the sign and something happened that puzzled pain-weary heads. At the very point where the court was in view the picture girl stopped short at the sight of the two who were promenading. For an instant she was perfectly still, only an instant, as she looked at the backs of Phil and the girl who was like a picture. Then she put her hand up to her head abruptly, as one will who recollects something, and turned away before the two had wheeled to walk back toward the Oral Surgery sign. It was a pantomime that set the men into a prolonged quandary. Some had an idea, from the way that Helen put her hand up to her head, that there had been a flash of pain as sharp as any they had ever known through it; others thought that she was relieved to find another in her place. Perhaps both were right, and all kept thinking of it after Phil and Henriette had gone indoors. When she had led him to his chair and drawn the coverlet over his legs as she had seen Helen do, she gave him the hand-clasp which meant "good-night." In answer, he gripped her hand tightly and drew her toward him. The other hand moved slowly back and forth in the air till its fingers touched her hair. Then, with the feathery touch of the blind, he traced the line of her forehead. A frown like her mother's gathered as he went on to her eyes, her nose, her lips, and her chin. "It is the first time that you ever did that," she wrote on his arm. When she brought his pad and he began writing, her head was bent, lips tight, eyes squinting with intensity, as she watched the tracing of each word. "Yes. I often wanted to----" Her frown had gone. Her head rose as she drew a deep breath and smiled as she would at herself in the mirror. His pencil hesitated, then went on. "----but thought that you might think I was rude. You don't think so, now?"