"You don't need to urge me not to hang around while your wounds are being dressed with soothing lotions. It's not necessary to hit me with an automobile to get me out of the way," she exclaimed with great sarcasm, and flounced away. "The gloom of night departs," he chuckled, and, turning dancing eyes upon his visitor, continued softly, "and now comes dawn." Virginia flushed again. "For all that you know, it may be stormy," she retorted, astonished at her own glib tongue. The merry banter of the patient and nurse had surprised her. She had been taught that this sort of thing was vulgar. Yet, somehow, it didn't seem so dreadful. She suspected that she rather liked it and was troubled by this symptom of innate depravity. Now she became aware that those black eyes were studying her, and mischief gleamed in their depths. "Our meeting was very sudden yesterday," he laughed. "I didn't have a chance to give you my card. My name is Joseph Tolliver Curtis. Those who--" he hesitated and then went on--"are my friends, call me Joe." Happiness radiated from him. He was so good humored that it was contagious. The visitor beamed upon the patient. "My name is Virginia Dale," she explained. "I know it," he admitted, and then, with the manner of intense personal interest, he demanded, "Do your friends--your intimate friends--by any chance call you 'Virge'?" "I should say not." The girl's eyes flashed as she retorted, "They would hear from me." "By letter," he inquired, "or telephone?" In a moment he continued, "I have it. You will sing to them just as you are going to sing to me." "Sing to you?" "Of course you are going to sing to me. Every one who visits a hospital should sing. It was found wonderfully soothing to the patients in the big army hospitals during the war. After they had listened to the performers they were more contented to endure their suffering." "They would have died on the spot if I'd sung," she answered. They both laughed in the exuberance of their youth at their own nonsense until his injured ribs stopped him and she became very serious. "I came, today--" her manner was almost shy--"to tell you how sorry I am for that accident. It makes me unhappy to think of you suffering here through my fault." "How can you blame yourself? You had nothing at all to do with it," he declared with great earnestness. "I told our chauffeur to hurry," she explained, and then with finality, "if he hadn't, there would have been no collision." Again his injured ribs subdued his laughter. "If everybody had stayed off the street, I wouldn't have been hurt. That's your argument." He studied her face for a moment and then resumed. "Listen, I am going to tell you a secret. Promise never to tell." "Honest," she agreed. "I was running away over the speed limit. I must have been going forty miles an hour."