"If--if I get very bad,--you know what I mean,--will you promise to do
exactly what I tell you?"
"I promise, absolutely."
"My trunk key is in my pocket-book. There is a letter in the tray--just a
name, no address on it. Promise to see that it is not delivered; that it
is destroyed without being read."
Sidney promised promptly; and, because it was too late now for her meeting
with Wilson, for the next hour she devoted herself to making Carlotta
comfortable. So long as she was busy, a sort of exaltation of service
upheld her. But when at last the night assistant came to sit with the sick
girl, and Sidney was free, all the life faded from her face. He had waited
for her and she had not come. Would he understand? Would he ask her to
meet him again? Perhaps, after all, his question had not been what she had
thought.
She went miserably to bed. K.'s little watch ticked under her pillow. Her
stiff cap moved in the breeze as it swung from the corner of her mirror.
Under her window passed and repassed the night life of the city--taxicabs,
stealthy painted women, tired office-cleaners trudging home at midnight, a
city patrol-wagon which rolled in through the gates to the hospital's
always open door. When she could not sleep, she got up and padded to the
window in bare feet. The light from a passing machine showed a youthful
figure that looked like Joe Drummond.
Life, that had always seemed so simple, was growing very complicated for
Sidney: Joe and K., Palmer and Christine, Johnny Rosenfeld,
Carlotta--either lonely or tragic, all of them, or both. Life in the raw.
Toward morning Carlotta wakened. The night assistant was still there. It
had been a quiet night and she was asleep in her chair. To save her cap
she had taken it off, and early streaks of silver showed in her hair.
Carlotta roused her ruthlessly.
"I want something from my trunk," she said.
The assistant wakened reluctantly, and looked at her watch. Almost morning.
She yawned and pinned on her cap.
"For Heaven's sake," she protested. "You don't want me to go to the
trunk-room at this hour!"
"I can go myself," said Carlotta, and put her feet out of bed.
"What is it you want?"
"A letter on the top tray. If I wait my temperature will go up and I can't
think."
"Shall I mail it for you?"
"Bring it here," said Carlotta shortly. "I want to destroy it."