old photos of herself and Bob and her father on the yacht, and other miscellaneous things which for one reason and another she wished to keep.
Then she sat down on her bed and stayed very still for some time. She recognized some kind of crisis in her life. It had come to her in the office when she offered her resignation to Bob. Something inside her said “Now or never.” And she wondered how many people in the history of relationships acted on the “Now.”
III
“Have you had a hard week? You seem tired.” Father Ryan looked solicitously at Valerie as she sat down to dinner.
“I’m more cross than tired. I haven’t slept well the last night or two. And life makes me so cross sometimes. There’s poor Duffield still alive. Why, why, when he has to die? Why is nature so brutal?”
The little priest waved his soft hands. “We have to leave all that.”
“I’ve noticed that most of us do leave it,” she retorted.
“What are you going to do to-night?” he asked after a minute’s silence.
“Nothing in particular. That is, I was going for a ride.”
“Would you like to come with me to the hospital and play to the patients? I have to see a man there who is very ill with pneumonia. There is a piano there seldom used. I think they’d like some music.”
“Yes indeed I will. Will the matron let me play at night?”
“Yes, I’m sure it will be all right. It’s in the accident ward.”
