CHAPTER XXIII

COMPARISONS

Mabel Skinner’s news was true. The letter Miss Marble had received told the story from Helen Fuller’s standpoint. But let the heroics in it be the nine days’ wonder of Mailsburg. Here are the facts:

Frank Barton came to his senses slowly and found himself upon a cot, one of a long line, in a ward of the base hospital at Lovin, as the place may be called, without the first idea of how he got there. His last memory was of facing the crew of the German air-raider with Helen Fuller clinging to his arm and making it impossible to defend her or himself or to deal effectively with the enemy before them.

“Where--where am I?” he stammered. “What happened?”

“Oh, Frank!” squealed a voice, and some one in correct nurse’s garb stood beside him. “You’re not going to die, are you? Isn’t that just _dear_!”

“Oh, heavens!” groaned Lieutenant Barton, in something like despair. “_You_ here?”

Were Frank Barton’s eyes at last seeing truly? It was, perhaps, the most impolite speech he had ever made. But he was very weak and still a little lightheaded.

Had the quiet-faced French matron of the ward understood much English, she surely would have removed Miss Fuller from attendance on the lieutenant almost at once. As it was he had to listen to the girl’s fulsome praises and silly ejaculations.

It was not until some time later that Barton learned just what had happened after he had been hit with the sharp stone and had handed his weapon to the distracted Helen.

“Why, that Heinie used to pitch in one of the bush leagues,” Morrison Copley told Barton, when he came to see his lieutenant. “Lived ten years in America and then went back to fight for Kultur. Something’s going to happen to him, for the lieutenant in command of the airship declares all bets off. He had warned his men not to fight.”

“I wonder what they had in their mind when they started for me. Going to kiss me, I suppose,” Barton suggested weakly.

“Bah jove! that’s a good one,” said Morry. “I must tell that to Brad. Say, that lad got ‘mention’ in general orders for capturing the gang. But he walks right up to the colonel, and says: ‘Colonel, it wasn’t much to capture fourteen men that were not armed. How about Lieutenant Barton who tackled them single handed and perhaps helped bring the old Zep down anyway?’”

“That’s all right,” commented Barton. “Good of Bradley. But, really, I did no more than another man would have done. Those poor people in the car that were blown to bits----”

“And it was a car that followed on behind that one that picked you and Mam’zelle Hélène up,” grinned Morry, “and brought you cross country to Lovin. That’s how you were lost trace of. Guess the folks at home must think you evaporated into thin air, Lieutenant. But they’ll know the truth very soon now. I’ve written home about you.”

But that was not entirely satisfactory to Frank Barton. He wanted to write himself. He had a strong and particular reason for writing, and to a particular girl.

Aside from the wound in his head--a wound which would always leave a scar--his right arm was strapped tightly to his side. He had a fracture of the shoulder that made a cast necessary and would entail a long convalescence. Frank Barton’s active military career was halted before it was much more than begun.

The delayed report of his wounds did not officially reach Mailsburg until after both Helen’s letter to Miss Marble and Morrison Copley’s “open letter” to the Mailsburg _Clarion_ were received. Barton was the first of the town’s boys reported under fire and the first to suffer injury in the war.

A delayed letter from Ethel had reached Barton soon after he found himself established in the hospital ward with Helen Fuller hovering about him a good part of every day.

“Business, I suppose, Frank?” she observed when she saw the name and address on the back of the envelope. “_Can’t_ those factory people let you alone, you poor dear boy, even when you are _wounded_ so?”

Barton felt like speaking impolitely again. But he had command of himself now. Nevertheless Helen continued to rasp his nerves on more than one subject. Had he been blessed with another nurse he would have dictated an answer to Ethel’s letter. There was a tone to it--a wistfulness which the girl had been unable to hide--that deeply moved the wounded lieutenant.

The missive was written before Ethel had been made assistant manager of the Hapwood-Diller Company; yet even then she felt the burden of her position and would have been glad of any bit of kindly advice he might have sent her. But for three weeks, at least, he must remain silent. He had never learned to write with his left hand like Benway Chase.

He proved to be a patient _blessé_, and both the physicians and nurses praised him. That he had come to a French hospital was rather unfortunate, for Barton’s knowledge of French was slight. He had to make most of his desires known through Helen and therefore was at a disadvantage.

She frankly encouraged the appearance of a closer association between them than was the case. A few months before Frank Barton would have been delighted at such intimacy with Helen Fuller. But he was quite aware now of her shortcomings.

Even her association with the Red Cross was a play. It was a part of her unquenchable desire to show off all the time. Had Barton been really left to her small mercies he realized that it would have gone hard with him. She kept her interest in him as a patient only because of the romance of their adventure together at the time of the air raid.

He could not forget how small and light a part she had played at that time. He hoped that no other American girl in France would prove herself so great a coward as Helen Fuller had on that momentous occasion.

He began to feel a distaste for her glowing beauty--a beauty of coloring and feature and texture of skin and hair only, without character or intelligence looking out of the eyes or showing in the face.

In the warmth of the first few days of their sojourn at the hospital even so modest a man as Frank Barton saw plainly that he was being given the opportunity to declare himself. Helen was waiting for him to respond to her advances.

When he did not respond she began finally to be piqued, then angry. She had herself transferred to another ward. Her absence did not increase Barton’s temperature, the chart at the head of his cot remained normal.

This rift between them was noted and remarked on by some of the other nurses. At last Helen took offence, had her mother telegraph her from Paris, and obtained a furlough and departed from Lovin without bidding Frank good-bye.

He did not miss her, save in a relieved way. He had compared her with another girl--another of whom he had never thought before as other than a business associate--and found that Helen Fuller was dwarfed in the comparison.

Thinking of Ethel as he lay in his hospital cot, he was amazed to discover how much that was really worth while he knew about her. Important things, too--individualities and phases of character that now revealed Ethel Clayton as a girl eminently worthy of consideration.

The girl he had left behind was all that Helen Fuller proved not to be. He was confident that Ethel would not have shown the white feather as Helen had at the time of the German air raid. No girl who had so courageously taken up the additional burden of responsibility in the Hapwood-Diller Company offices could be a coward in any particular.

The vision of Ethel Clayton grew in his mind. His thoughts centered about her. He began to wonder what her attitude would be toward him if he should go back home and see her again.

It was not interest in the Hapwood-Diller Company that was drawing his heart to Mailsburg during these days. He did not give a fig for business. His heartstrings were attuned to a much tenderer emotion. He was gradually beginning to see things in their proper light.