herself:

"Good morning, Twenty-two. Well, God is still in His heaven, and
all's well with the world."

Twenty-two got to feeling awfully uncomfortable about her. She used
to bring him flowers and sit down a moment to rest her feet, which
generally stung. And she would stop in the middle of a sentence and
look into space, but always with a determined smile.

He felt awfully uncomfortable. She was so neat and so efficient--and
so tragic. He tried to imagine being hopelessly in love, and trying
to live on husks of Browning. Not even Mrs. Browning.

The mind is a curious thing. Suddenly, from thinking of Mrs.
Browning, he thought of N. Jane Brown. Of course not by that
ridiculous name. He had learned that she was stationed on that
floor. And in the same flash he saw the Senior Surgical Interne
swanking about in white ducks and just the object for a probationer
to fall in love with. He lay there, and pulled the beginning of the
new moustache, and reflected. The First Assistant was pinning a
spray of hyacinth in her cap.

"Look here," he said. "Why can't I be put in a wheeled chair and get
about? One that I can manipulate myself," he added craftily.

She demurred. Indeed, everybody demurred when he put it up to them.
But he had gone through the world to the age of twenty-four, getting
his own way about ninety-seven per cent. of the time. He got it this
time, consisting of a new cast, which he named Elizabeth, and a
roller-chair, and he spent a full day learning how to steer himself
around.

Then, on the afternoon of the third day, rolling back toward the
elevator and the _terra incognita_ which lay beyond, he saw a sign.
He stared at it blankly, because it interfered considerably with a
plan he had in mind. The sign was of tin, and it said:

"No private patients allowed beyond here."

Twenty-two sat in his chair and stared at it. The plaster cast
stretched out in front of him, and was covered by a grey blanket.
With the exception of the trifling formality of trousers, he was
well dressed in a sack coat, a shirt, waistcoat, and a sort of
college-boy collar and tie, which one of the orderlies had purchased
for him. His other things were in that extremely expensive English
car which the city was storing.

The plain truth is that Twenty-two was looking for Jane Brown. Since
she had not come to him, he must go to her. He particularly wanted
to set her right as to Mabel. And he felt, too, that that trick
about respi