felt cool and strong. Well, I'm young, she thought, damn it.
They mounted into what seemed like a crowd, through which the doctor came directly to Susan. 'He's going to be aU right. Nothing to worry about. He's very nervous, of course. I'll soon strap him up and hell have a little phenobarbital and go off to sleep. Be feeling much better by tomorrow. Now, Susan . . .'
Susan said, 'Where is he, doctor?''
She went with him to her son.
Alice found herself facing the Whitlock girls, who stood almost in a line. There was Isabel, fumbling at the neck of her dress with her sharp-nailed left hand. There was Gertrude, stiff and tall, locked in her colorless world of sound. There was Maud, fat ankles wide apart, her mad garment hanging every which way, her eyes shifting busily from Alice to her sisters. She looked as if thought were running
in her head like a squirrel in its cage. Alice tossed her own head and marched mto the bedroom. She crossed toward the big bed. Susan was bending there. Her voice murmured like a lullaby.
The doctor said, 'My bag?'
'Oh, gosh,' said AUce. 'I forgot. YU. get it.'
The house was confused. Alice was confused. Her mind seemed unable to seize upon and foUow out a thread of action. Susan's coming had made her forget the bag. Now, as she went out of the room again, she forgot the sisters. They were gone. They had melted away like a chorus whose turn was over. But Alice forgot them.
She paused to try to pull herself together. I might as well, she thought, for all the notice I get. Be cool. Be strong. Perhaps it was a question of doing one thing at a time. First, get the doctor's bag. Then ask what more she could do. Stop floating around like a fool. Stop being batted this way and that. Take stock. What happens next? She put one foot in front of the other, deliberately taking thought to do so. She started for the head of the stairs.
It was just at that moment that she heard the soimd. The house was full of sound, of course. Behind her, in the sickroom, she could hear the doctor's voice and Susan's. From somewhere came the soimd of running water. There was movement on the floor below, faint sounds of walking. Yet this one new sound seemed to echo alone in the isolated quiet of the hall in which she stood. It came from below, she thought.
An odd soimd. A queer little chuckle in the throat. A little caw of excitement. It was a sound no one would make on purpose. She felt that it came directly from thought. Spontaneous. Unconscious. There was voice behind it, even though it was less a voice than a stirring in the throat. It was queer.
Alice came to the head of the stairs and started down. She found nobody there, in the downstairs hall. She picked up the doctor's bag and took it back with her. One thing at a time.
Innes was talking. He must be in pain. Ifis ribs hurt him. He had come out of the dazed state, and he was talking in a high-pitched, frantic voice. Alice closed the door
with enough violence to make a noise, and the doctor and Susan looked around at her.
Innes said, 'I mean it, doctor. I'm afraid. Alice, is that Alice? Come here, dear. Don't leave me. Where's Fred?'
'I don't know,' she said. 'How do you feel now?'
'It's not so bad,' he said. His face was wet, though. 'I don't want to stay here. Tell him to let us go. Alice, tell him.'
'Go!' Alice said, astonished. 'Why, Innes, you can't go driving around the country with your ribs broken.'
'I can't stay here. I'm afraid to. Don't you see?'
'But why?'
'Because I'm afraid,' he said with shrill stubbornness. 'All right, it's silly zmd they're women and I know all that. But I'm afraid and I don't care. I can't help it.' His voice cracked and he looked at Alice desperately.
Susan said, 'Could he be moved down to my house, doctor?'
'Oh, yes,' said Alice. 'Why didn't we think . . .'
'You haven't room,' Innes said despairingly. 'Don't be silly, mother. You know you haven't room.'
'I could make room,' Susan said stoutly. 'You might have my bed, and my paying guest would just have to go somewhere else. I think he would, Innes. Then Alice could come too, after tomorrow.'
The plan hung in the air and fell through. Alice knew, all of a sudden, that it wouldn't happen. How explain it? How could she stay here in this house one night, and Innes elsewhere? What about Fred? It seemed unreasonable to move Innes now. It was unreasonable. There was no reason for it, just a feeling. A feeling wasn't enough for such a reshuffling of people.
The doctor said quietly, 'You had better stay right in that bed, Whitlock. I wouldn't advise anything else. You're nervous and no wonder. Here, get these down.'
He made Innes swallow two pills and handed the small white pillbox to Alice. 'Keep lUm warm. He may have a chill. And give him two of these . . . oh . . . every three hours. Can you attend to that. Miss Brennan?'
'Of course,' Alice said. 'Do you mean in the night, too?'
'No, no; not if he sleeps. If he's awake and restless.'
'ru attend to it,' she said.
Susan said 'Now, Innes, if you'd like me to stay here, I will I can make myself comfortable right in that chair.'
'No, thank you, mother.''
Alice felt the slap as it went to Susan.
But Susan said cheerfully, 'Well, I'm glad you're no worse I'll get along them.' She patted his hand and turned
