CHAPTER XXXVIII

“Life’s business being just the terrible choice.”

THERE was trouble at Shindies Alley, not that there was anything unusual in that! For it was a place where trouble was the commonplace, and what the comfortable call tragedy almost a nursery rule. Only the trouble was worse than usual, amounting to the prospect of the police and a possible murder case in the papers. “Rough Tom” being not quite so drunk as usual had beaten his wife nearly to death, a thing he had done before, but never quite so effectually. It was better, the neighbors thought, to send a boy to the doctor’s, he and the lady at the club had been there before. This time the doctor arrived first. “Rough Tom” was off, no one of course knew where. All denied any knowledge of him, though exultingly willing to report any unnecessary and loathsome details of the row. The doctor dismissed the crowd curtly. They vanished silently into dark holes and corners.

It was a cold night. The children sharing the den where their mother lay cursing and groaning cried dismally. They also cried loudly; it seemed worth while with both a row and a doctor. Geoff despatched them to a neighbor’s across the passage, and examined the woman by a guttering candle. She swore horribly, but she was too much engrossed with pain to be afraid; she was also anxious to explain that it was not her man’s fault but another woman’s, whom she called by a variety of names. She was too ill to be moved, and the doctor began with steady gentleness to dress the wounds. He needed a nurse, but he had no time to send for one. The case was urgent. We fight as earnestly for the most apparently useless lives as for the dearest, yet we cannot believe that God has as high a respect for the ultimate fate of the crushed soul’s life as we have to keep breath in a ruined body.

It was the doctor’s profession, but it was that least of all that made him fight for her. He looked up and saw Muriel at the door. He felt intensely angry that she should know such a place existed.

“I should advise you to go away,” he said coldly. Muriel looked up for a moment, simply astonished, then she advanced towards him and the heap of rags.

“I am going to help you,” she said.

“You are only in the way,” he replied grimly, not raising his eyes from the patient. “I want a nurse, not—a young lady.” The last words might have been an insult. She flushed angrily.

“I can hold her for you,” she said; “I am not afraid.” It was necessary to have some help.

“You will faint?” he questioned incredulously.

“No, Dr. Grant, I shall not!” said Muriel. He knew by her tone that she was very angry.

“Well, then, don’t waste any more time,” was his only reply.

In another moment she was down on her knees, obeying short, imperious orders. Dr. Grant never left much to the initiative of his nurses. The sight was almost more repulsive than she could bear. She wanted to cover her face with her hands instead of using them on the awful crushed form. She wanted to scream at the woman’s pain, to rage at the doctor’s cruelty, to fly from this whole world of constant reiterated woe; but she was far too angry even to let her hands tremble. At last she felt that her strength was going; she turned white, cold perspiration stood on her forehead. The doctor glanced at her sharply, and then—he laughed. The hot blood rushed to her heart; she grew rigid now, but not with fear; the noise in her ears ceased. She heard every word he said, anticipated every need, and had not reached the limit of her strength when the doctor released her.

“The morphia will keep her quiet till morning,” he said. “You’d better go home.”

“Will she live?” she asked him.

“Unfortunately—yes,” said Geoff. “Women of that sort generally do—to be beaten again!” They went in silence to the door. Muriel was quite certain now that she disliked him.

Geoff left a few parting directions to a reluctant, but almost entirely sober, neighbor. When they were in the street Muriel waited for him to explain; but he did not explain. It was a habit of his not to, possibly owing to his professional desire to steer clear of the definite. Muriel was too astonished, hurt and indignant to remain silent for long. She stopped.

“Good-night, Dr. Grant,” she said with an icy formality. The doctor’s eyes twinkled.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. She looked at him with a searching angry glance.

“Your manner has not pleased me to-night,” she replied quietly; “I should prefer to return alone.”

“I am sorry if I have displeased you, Miss Dallerton,” said Geoff with his mouth ominously twitching. Was it imaginable that she couldn’t see he wanted to kiss her? As she stood there, aggrieved, defiant, serious, her eyes like two points of light under her heavy hair, the bright color in her cheeks, the whole daring absurdity of _her_ seriously facing life there in a horrible alley instead of the delicate luxury of a West-End drawing-room, he could have laughed at the inappropriateness of it. “It’s too cold for an apology,” he ventured more gravely. “I will see you about this later, if I may. Please let me see you home first.”

She did not want to seem girlishly tempestuous, so she assented to his last request, but in bitter silence walked with him to the club. She did not give him her hand as he said “Good-night.” She wanted tremendously to refuse to allow him to call, to cut short their acquaintance, to never set eyes on him again. But she felt an absurd desire to cry brought on by the physical strain of the past two hours, so that she said nothing.

Yet when she was in her room she would not cry. She forced the tears back, and remembered how he had laughed at her! The utter careless brutality of his whole behavior! And Cynthia could be so foolish as to imagine he cared for her! She herself had never for an instant dreamed it—she refused to admit it—it was impossible! It never occurred to her in the least that Geoff had been trying to rouse her courage through opposition, and to control his own too tender feelings by a mask of rudeness. Even if it had occurred to her she would probably have been just as angry, for what she was really indignant with was his strength and her weakness, and she could find no excuses for that.