“It is a wonder city, a city of towers, Uncle Richard,” Tory whispered. “I am not sure I like it so well as London and Paris. Somehow it reminds me a little of both, and yet is like neither.”
“You know, Mr. Fenton, that sounds as Tory’s speeches so often do. So many ideas come to her at once that she pours them out in a single breath and makes her audience gather up the lost threads.
“If Lance is working here in New York I do not believe he is so unhappy as Don and I usually think he is.”
Nothing save luncheon and placing their suitcases in their room kept the two girls from going directly to Kara.
Tory had written her to say they would appear early in the afternoon.
The hospital was some distance uptown, but they reached it in an amazingly short time by the subway.
Mr. Fenton escorted the girls, but left them at the hospital entrance, promising to return later.
Tory’s arms were filled with red roses she had purchased from the florist on the corner after they left the subway. Dorothy’s gift was more modest, a bunch of claret-colored grapes.
Nevertheless, at the threshold of the hospital the girls halted.
“I don’t know exactly why, but I rather dread going in, don’t you, Tory?” Dorothy murmured. “Oh, well, I presume you are not so stupid! For a doctor’s daughter, I am singularly nervous about illness. And I never have grown accustomed to the thought of Kara’s misfortune.”
“Let’s not talk of it now. Kara is waiting and might guess how we feel.”
Receiving uncertain directions from a nurse, the visitors wandered down a scrupulously sanitary hall, to knock timidly upon a door, numbered 17.
It was Kara’s voice that answered: “Come in.”
When the door opened she moved toward them on two crutches, very timid and haltingly.
Before they could do more than exclaim, she seated herself in a chair, the old humorous expression about the corners of her lips and eyes reappearing.
“I am not a pedestrian yet. But this is better than sitting still forever. Come here and let me embrace you both at once. Dorothy, please see that Tory does not weep and spoil my red roses. I suppose they are mine.”
After a little the girls found cushions and placed themselves on the floor at Kara’s feet.
“Now tell me every single thing that has happened since I left,” she said. “Don’t think anything is too unimportant.”