lity. And probably the girl would wear herself out, too.

To fight inertia on the one hand and to study this queer girl on
the other. Any financial return was inconsiderable against the
promise of this psychological treat. The girl was like some
north-country woodland pool, penetrated by a single shaft of
sunlight--beautifully clear in one spot and mysteriously obscured
elsewhere. She would be elemental; there would be in her somewhere
the sleeping tigress. The elemental woman was always close to the
cat: as the elemental man was always but a point removed from the
wolf.

It was so arranged that Ruth went on duty after breakfast and
remained until noon. The afternoon was her own; but from eight
until midnight she sat beside the patient. At no time did she feel
bodily or mental fatigue. Frequently she would doze in her chair;
but the slightest movement on the bed aroused her.

At luncheon, on the third day, a thick-set man with a blue jaw
smiled across his table at her. She recognized him as the man who
had blundered into the wrong room.

"How is the patient?" he asked.

"He will live," answered Ruth.

"That's fine," said O'Higgins. "I suppose he'll be on his feet any
day now."

"No. It will take at least three weeks."

"Well, so long as he gets on his feet in the end. You're a friend
of the young man?"

"If you mean did I know him before he became ill, no."

"Ah." O'Higgins revolved this information about, but no angle
emitted light. Basically a kindly man but made cynical and derisive
by sordid contacts, O'Higgins had almost forgotten that there was
such a thing as unselfishness. The man or woman who did something
for nothing always excited his suspicions; they were playing some
kind of a game. "You mean you were just sorry for him?"

"As I would be for any human being in pain."

"Uh-huh." For the life of him, O'Higgins could not think of
anything else to say. Just because she was sorry for that young
fool! "Uh-huh," he repeated, rising and bowing as he passed Ruth's
table. He wished he had the time to solve this riddle, for it was a
riddle, and four-square besides. Back in the States young women did
not offer to play the Good Samaritan to strange young fools whom
Jawn D. Barleycorn had sent to the mat for the count of nine:
unless the young fool's daddy had a bundle of coin. Maybe the girl
was telling the truth, and then again, maybe she wasn't.

The situation bothered him considerably. Things happen