A little swayingly the White Linen Nurse shifted her standing weight from one foot to the other.

"I'm sorry, sir!" said the White Linen Nurse. "I'd like to have seen a roller-coaster, sir!"

Just for an instant a gleam of laughter went brightening across the Senior Surgeon's brooding face, and was gone again.

"Rae Malgregor, come here!" he ordered quite sharply.

Very softly, very glidingly, like the footfall of a person who has never known heels, the White Linen Nurse came forward swiftly and sliding in cautiously between the Senior Surgeon and his desk, stood there with her back braced against the desk, her fingers straying idly up and down the edges of the desk, staring up into his face all readiness, all attention, like a soldier waiting further orders.

So near was she that he could almost hear the velvet heart-throb of her,—the little fluttering swallow,—yet by some strange, persistent aloofness of her, some determinate virginity, not a fold of her gown, not an edge, not a thread, seemed to even so much as graze his knee, seemed to even so much as shadow his hand,—lest it short-circuit thereby the seething currents of their variant emotions.

With extraordinary intentness for a moment the Senior Surgeon sat staring into the girl's eyes, the blue, blue eyes too full of childish questioning yet to flinch with either consciousness or embarrassment.

"After all, Rae Malgregor," he smiled at last, faintly—"After all, Rae Malgregor,—Heaven knows when I shall ever get—another holiday!"

"Yes, sir?" said the White Linen Nurse.

With apparent irrelevance he reached for his ivory paper-cutter and began bending it dangerously between his adept fingers.

"How long have you been with me, Rae Malgregor?" he asked quite abruptly.

"Four months—actually with you, sir," said the White Linen Nurse.

"Do you happen to remember the exact phrasing of my—proposal of marriage to you?" he asked shrewdly.

"Oh, yes, sir!" said the White Linen Nurse. "You called it 'general heartwork for a family of two'!"

A little grimly before her steady gaze the Senior Surgeon's own eyes fell, and rallied again almost instantly with a gaze as even and direct as hers.

"Well," he smiled. "Through the whole four months I seem to have kept my part of the contract all right—and held you merely as a—drudge in my home. Have you then decided, once and for all time,—whether you are going to stay on with us—or whether you will 'give notice' as other drudges have done?"

With a little backward droop of one shoulder the White Linen Nurse began to finger nervously at the desk behind her, and turning half way round as though to estimate what damage she was doing, exposed thus merely the profile of her pink face, of her white throat, to the Senior Surgeon's questioning eyes.

"I shall never—give notice, sir!" fluttered the white throat.

"Are you perfectly sure?" insisted the Senior Surgeon.

The pink in the White Linen Nurse's profiled cheek deepened a little.

"Perfectly sure, sir!" attested the carmine lips.

Like the crack of a pistol the Senior Surgeon snapped the ivory paper cutter in two.

"All right then!" he said. "Rae Malgregor, look at me! Don't take your eyes from mine, I say! Rae Malgregor, if I should decide in my own mind, here and now, that it was best for you—as well as for me—that you should come away with me now—for this week,—not as my guest as I had planned,—but as my wife,—even if you were not quite ready for it in your heart,—even if you were not yet remotely ready for it,—would you come because I told you to come?"

Heavily under her white, white eyelids, heavily under her black, black lashes, the girl's eyes struggled up to meet his own.

"Yes, sir," whispered the White Linen Nurse.

Abruptly the Senior Surgeon pushed back his chair from the desk, and stood up. The important decision once made, no further finessing of words seemed either necessary or dignified to him.

"Go and pack your suit-case quickly then!" he ordered. "I want to get away from here within half an hour!"

But before the girl had half crossed the room he called to her suddenly, his whole bearing and manner miraculously changed, and his face in that moment as haggard as if a whole lifetime's struggle was packed into it.

"Rae Malgregor," he drawled mockingly. "This thing shall be—barter way through to the end,—with the credit always on your side of the account. In exchange for the gift—of yourself—your—wonderful self—and the trust that goes with it, I will give you,—God help me,—the ugliest thing in my life. And God knows I have broken faith with myself once or twice but—never have I broken my word to another! From now on,—in token of your trust in me,—for whatever the bitter gift is worth to you,—as long as you stay with me,—my Junes shall be yours—to do with—as you please!"

"What, sir?" gasped the White Linen Nurse. "What, sir?"

Softly, almost stealthily, she was half way back across the room to him, when she stopped suddenly and threw out her arms with a gesture of appeal and defiance.

"All the same, sir!" she cried passionately, "all the same, sir,—the place is too hard for the small pay I get! Oh, I will do what I promised!" she attested with increasing passion. "I will never leave you! And I will mother your little girl! And I will servant your big house! And I will go with you wherever you say! And I will be to you whatever you wish! And I will never flinch from any hardship you impose on me—nor whine over any pain,—on and on and on—all my days—all my years—till I drop in my tracks again and—die—as you say 'still smiling'! All the same!" she reiterated wildly, "the place is too hard! It always was too hard! It always will be too hard—for such small pay!"

"For such small pay?" gasped the Senior Surgeon.

Around his heart a horrid clammy chill began to settle. Sickeningly through his brain a dozen recent financial transactions began to rehearse themselves.

"You mean, Miss Malgregor," he said a bit brokenly. "You mean—that I—haven't been generous enough with you?"

"Yes, sir," faltered the White Linen Nurse.

All the storm and passion died suddenly from her, leaving her just a frightened girl again, flushing pink-white, pink-white, pink-white, before the Senior Surgeon's scathing stare. One step, two steps, three, she advanced towards him.

"Oh, I mean, sir," she whispered, "oh, I mean, sir,—that I'm just an ordinary, ignorant country girl and you—are further above me than the moon from the sea! I couldn't expect you to—love me, sir! I couldn't even dream of your loving me! But I do think you might like me just a little bit with your heart!"

"What?" flushed the Senior Surgeon. "What?"

Whacketty-bang against the window pane sounded the Little Crippled Girl's knuckled fists! Darkly against the window pane squashed the Little Crippled Girl's staring face.

"Father!" screamed the shrill voice. "Father! There's a white lady here with two black ladies washing the breakfast dishes! Is it Aunt Agnes?"

With a totally unexpected laugh, with a totally unexpected desire to laugh, the Senior Surgeon strode across the room and unlocked his door. Even then his lips against the White Linen Nurse's ear made just a whisper, not a kiss.

"God bless you!—hurry!" he said. "And let's get out of here before any telephone message catches me!"

Then almost calmly he walked out on the piazza, and greeted his sister-in-law.

"Hello, Agnes!" he said.

"Hello, yourself!" smiled his sister-in-law.

"How's everything?" he enquired politely.

"How's everything with you?" parried his sister-in-law.

Idly for a few moments the Senior Surgeon threw out stray crumbs of thought to feed the conversation, while smilingly all the while from her luxuriant East Indian chair his sister-in-law sat studying the general situation. The Senior Surgeon's sister-in-law was always studying something. Last year it was archaeology,—the year before, basketry,—this year it happened to be eugenics, or something funny like that,—next year again it might be book-binding.

"So you and your pink and white shepherdess are going off on a little trip together?" she queried banteringly. "The girl's a darling, Lendicott! I haven't had as much sport in a long time as I had that afternoon last June when I came in my best calling-clothes and—helped her paint the kitchen woodwork! And I had come prepared to be a bit nasty, Lendicott! In all honesty, Lendicott, I might just as well 'fess up that I had come prepared to be just a little bit nasty!"

"She seems to have a way," smiled the Senior Surgeon, "she seems to have a way of disarming people's unpleasant intentions."

A trifle quizzically for an instant the woman turned her face to the Senior Surgeon's. It was a worldly face, a cold-featured, absolutely worldly face, with a surprisingly humorous mouth that warmed her nature just about as cheer fully, and just about as effectually, as one open fireplace warms a whole house. Nevertheless one often achieved much comfort by keeping close to "Aunt Agnes's" humorous mouth, for Aunt Agnes knew a thing or two,—Aunt Agnes did,—and the things that she made a point of knowing were conscientiously amiable.

"Why, Lendicott Faber," she rallied him now. "Why, you're as nervous as a school-boy! Why, I believe—I believe that you're going courting!"

More opportunely than any man could have dared to hope, the White Linen Nurse appeared suddenly on the scene in her little blue serge wedding-suit with her traveling-case in her hand. With a gasp of relief the Senior Surgeon took her case and his own and went on down the path to his car and his chauffeur leaving the two women temporarily alone.

When he returned to the piazza the Woman-of-the-World and the Girl-not-at-all-of-the-World were bidding each other a really affectionate good-by, and the woman's face looked suddenly just a little bit old but the girl's cheeks were most inordinately blooming.

In unmistakable friendliness his sister-in-law extended her hand to him.

"Good-by, Lendicott, old man!" she said. "And good luck to you!" A little slyly out of her shrewd gray eyes, she glanced up sideways at him. "You've got the devil's own temper, Lendicott dear," she teased, "and two or three other vices probably, and if rumor speaks the truth you've run a-muck more than once in your life,—but there's one thing I will say for you,—though it prove you a dear Stupid: you never were over-quick to suspect that any woman could possibly be in love with you!"

"To what woman do you particularly refer?" mocked the Senior Surgeon impatiently.

Quite brazenly to her own heart which never yet apparently had stirred the laces that enshrined it, his sister-in-law pointed with persistent banter.

"Maybe I refer to—myself," she laughed, "and maybe to the only—other lady present!"

"Oh!" gasped the White Linen Nurse.

"You do me much honor, Agnes," bowed the Senior Surgeon. Quite resolutely he held his gaze from following the White Linen Nurse's quickly averted face.

A little oddly for an instant the older woman's glance hung on his. "More honor perhaps than you think, Lendicott Faber!" she said, and kept right on smiling.

"Eh?" jerked the Senior Surgeon. Restively he turned to the White Linen Nurse.

Very flushingly on the steps the White Linen Nurse knelt arguing with the Little Crippled Girl.

"Your father and I are—going away," she pleaded. "Won't you—please—kiss us good-by?"

"I've only got one kiss," sulked the Little Crippled Girl.

"Give it to your—father!" pleaded the White Linen Nurse.

Amazingly all in a second the ugliness vanished from the little face. Dartlingly like a bird the Child swooped down and planted one large round kiss on the Senior Surgeon's astonished boot.

"Beautiful Father!" she cried, "I kiss your feet!"

Abruptly the Senior Surgeon plunged from the step and started down the walk. His cheek-bones were quite crimson.

Two or three rods behind him the White Linen Nurse followed falteringly. Once she stopped to pick up a tiny stick or a stone. And once she dallied to straighten out a snarled spray of red and brown woodbine.

Missing the sound or the shadow of her the Senior Surgeon turned suddenly to wait. So startled was she by his intentness, so flustered, so affrighted, that just for an instant the Senior Surgeon thought that she was going to wheel in her tracks and bolt madly back to the house. Then quite unexpectedly she gave an odd, muffled little cry, and ran swiftly to him like a child, and slipped her bare hand trustingly into his. And they went on together to the car.

With his foot already half lifted to the step the Senior Surgeon turned abruptly around and lifted his hat and stood staring back bareheaded for some unexplainable reason at the two silent figures on the piazza.

"Rae," he said perplexedly, "Rae, I don't seem to know just why—but somehow I'd like to have you kiss your hand to Aunt Agnes!"

Obediently the White Linen Nurse withdrew her fingers from his and wafted two kisses, one to "Aunt Agnes" and one to the Little Crippled Girl.

Then the White Linen Nurse and the Senior Surgeon climbed up into the tonneau of the car where they had never, never sat alone before, and the Senior Surgeon gave a curt order to his man and the big car started off again into—interminable spaces.

Mutely without a word, without a glance passing between them the Senior Surgeon held out his hand to her once more, as though the absence of her hand in his was suddenly a lonesomeness not to be endured again while life lasted.

Whizz—whizz—whizz—whirr—whirr—whirr the ribbony road began to roll up again on that hidden spool under the car.

When the chauffeur's mind seemed sufficiently absorbed in speed and sound the Senior Surgeon bent down a little mockingly and mumbled his lips inarticulately at the White Linen Nurse.

"See!" he laughed. "I've got a text, too, to keep my courage up! Of course you look like an angel!" he teased closer and closer to her flaming face. "But all the time to myself—to reassure myself—I just keep saying—' Bah! She 's nothing but a Woman—nothing but a Woman—nothing but a Woman'!"

Within the Senior Surgeon's warm, firm grasp the White Linen Nurse's calm hand quickened suddenly like a bud forced precipitously into full bloom.

"Oh, don't—talk, sir," she whispered. "Oh, don't talk, sir! Just—listen!"

"Listen? Listen to what?" laughed the Senior Surgeon.

From under the heavy lashes that shadowed the flaming cheeks the Soul of the Girl who was to be his peered up at the Soul of the Man who was to be hers,—and saluted what she saw!

"Oh, my heart, sir!" whispered the White Linen Nurse. "Oh, my heart! My heart! my heart!"

THE END