"It was very good for a first attempt," said Betty, considering him professionally. "Is that leg comfortable?"
"Quite, thank you." He leaned back and closed his eyes with a luxurious sigh. "'Pon my word, this is what I call cutting it pretty fat. Fancy my lolling here in the sun, and you . . . and you——" he opened his eyes, regarding her as she stood before him in her trim, nurse's uniform. "It's quite like a play, isn't it, where everything comes right in the end? Miss Betty——"
"You mustn't call me that," said Betty primly. "I told you before.
You must say 'Nurse.'"
"Can't I say 'Nurse Betty'?"
"My name is Elizabeth. If you wanted to distinguish me from other nurses you might conceivably say 'Nurse Elizabeth.' But even that's not necessary, as I'm the only nurse here at the moment."
The Indiarubber Man looked cautiously round the sunlit enclosure.
"True. So you are——"
"And it's time for your beef-tea," added Betty severely, marching off in the direction of the distant wing.
Her patient watched her slim form retreating and vanish down a green alley. "You dear," he said, "you dear!" He meditated awhile. "It's a rum world," he soliloquised. "Torps has gone. The Young Doc.'s gone. The Pay's gone."
He mused awhile. "But we gave 'em an almighty hammering. And here am I, alive and kicking again. And there's Betty. . . . It's a rum world." He bent forward and gathered a daisy growing in the border beside his seat. With his bleached, rather unsteady, fingers, he began picking the petals from it one by one.
"She does, she doesn't. She does, she doesn't. She doesn't," repeated the Indiarubber Man in a woeful voice.