Kitty began to bathe. Her white fingers were loaded with rings; she had a gold chain bracelet on her wrist. The bracelet dipped into the lotion, the rings became wet, the little fingers were slightly stained. Keith watched her with a growing sense of amusement. What a baby she was! How pretty! how ignorant! How dared she play with matters of life and death? Nevertheless it interested him that she should do so.
"What has brought you back to the hospital again, Kit?" he said. "Are you better?"
"And you seriously mean to help the nurses?"
"Yes, seriously. Isn't the lotion rather cold?"
"No; it does very nicely. Please don't dab the sponge quite so hard against my leg. Ah! that is better. You would make quite a good nurse if you practised, Kitty."
"I mean to try," answered Kitty, encouraged and cheered by his words of praise.
"But you ought not to wear rings or bracelets."
"Don't you like me to wear my rings?" she said, her lips quivering as she raised a perfectly childish face to his.
"I am sure this is too cold now," she said.
He did not reply. She threw the used-up lotion away, and made a fresh one. She was very ignorant, and he was as much so. Instead of two or three drops, she put in a liberal supply of Condy. The water also was hot--too hot for the inflamed leg. She filled the sponge, and put it on. Keith, in spite of himself, uttered a cry. Then he bit his lip and turned very white.
"I don't think, somehow, that is quite right," he said, and he had scarcely uttered the words before he fainted away. Kitty's lotion had burned his wound badly.
Mollie heard his cry, and rushed towards him. She applied restoratives quickly, and spoke to Kitty in a voice rendered sharp with annoyance.
"You did not make the lotion right," she said. "How much Condy did you put in?"
"Oh, how it discolours my hand!" she said. "It is horrid stuff; why do you use it?"
"It is the right thing to use. Go away, please Kitty; I will see to this."
She stood sullenly by. Keith opened his eyes. He could not suppress a groan of pain. Mollie had made a fresh lotion; she applied it, cool and tender and refreshing, to the inflamed leg.
"After all, Kitty's measures were a little stringent," she said; "but perhaps they will do you good in the long run, only you must bear an hour or so of pain. Now, I will get an orderly to help me, and we will put you on one of the empty beds, and by the afternoon your leg ought to be much better."