The soldier sat up holding his precious check.
“I’ll have to ask you to let me out,” he said, trying to be dignified under the heavy stupor of weariness that was creeping over him. “I’ve got to get to a bank.”
“Oh, must you, to-day? Couldn’t we wait till to-morrow or till you feel better?” asked Mary anxiously.
“No, I must go now,” he insisted doggedly.
“Well, there’s a bank on the next corner,” she said; “and it must be about closing-time.” She shoved her sleeve back, and glanced at her watch. “Just five minutes of three. We’ll stop, but you’ll promise to hurry, won’t you? I want to get you home. I’m worried about you.”
Lyman Gage cast her another of those wondering looks like a child unused to kindness suddenly being petted. It made her feel as if she wanted to cry. All the mother in her came to her eyes. She drew up in front of the bank, and got out after him.
“I’ll go in with you,” she said. “They know me over here, and it may save you trouble.”
“You’re very kind,” he said almost curtly. “I dislike to make you so much trouble----”
Perhaps it was owing to Mary’s presence that the transaction went through without question, and in a few minutes more they were back in the car again, Mary tucking up her big patient fussily.
“You’re going to put this around your neck,” she said, drawing a bright woolly scarf from her capacious coat-pocket, “and around your head,” she added, drawing a fold comfortingly up around his ears and the back of his head. “And keep it over your nose and mouth. Breathe through it; don’t let this cold air get into your lungs,” she finished with a businesslike air as if she were a nurse.
She drew the ends of the scarf around, completely hiding everything but his eyes, and tucked the ends into the neck of the fur coat. Then she produced another lap-robe from some region beneath her feet, and tucked that carefully around him. It was wonderful being taken care of in this way; if he only had not been so cold, so tired, and so sore all over he could have enjoyed it. The scarf had a delicate aroma of spring and violets, something that reminded him of pleasant things in the past; but it all seemed like a dream.
They were skimming along over the road up which he had come at so laborious a pace, and the icy wind cut his eyeballs. He closed his eyes, and a hot curtain seemed to shut him out from a weary world. Almost he seemed to be spinning away into space. He tried to open his mouth under the woollen fragrance and speak; but his companion ordered him sharply to be still till he got where it was warm, and a sharp cough like a knife caught him. So he sank back again into the perfumed silence of the fierce heat and cold that seemed to be raging through his body, and continued the struggle to keep from drifting into space. It did not seem quite gallant or gentlemanly to say nothing, nor soldierly to drift away like that when she was being so kind. And then a curious memory of the other girl drifted around in the frost of his breath mockingly, as if she were laughing at his situation, almost as if she had put him there and was glad. He tried to shake this off by opening his eyes and concentrating them on Mary Amber as she sat sternly at her wheel, driving her little machine for all it was worth, her eyes anxious, and the flush on her cheek bright and glowing. The fancy came to him that she was in league with him against the other girl. He knew it was foolish, and he tried to drive the idea away; but it stayed till she passed her own hedge and stopped the car at Miss Marilla’s gate.