I became aware to-night of one face detaching itself from the rest. It is not a more pleasing face than the others, but it is becoming conspicuous to me.
Twice a week, when there is a concert in the big hall, the officers and the V.A.D.'s are divided, by some unspoken rule—the officers sitting at one side of the room, the V.A.D.'s in a white row on the other.
When my eyes rest for a moment on the motley of dressing-gowns, mackintoshes, uniforms, I inevitably see in the line one face set on a slant, one pair of eyes forsaking the stage and fixed on me in a steady, inoffensive beam.
This irritates me. The very lack of offence irritates me. But one grows to look for everything.
Afterwards in the dining-room during Mess he will ask politely: "What did you think of the concert, Sister? Good show...."
How wonderful to be called Sister! Every time the uncommon name is used towards me I feel the glow of an implied relationship, something which links me to the speaker.
My Sister remarked: "If it's only a matter of that, we can provide thrills for you here very easily."
The name of my ... admirer ... is, after all, Pettitt. The other nurse in the Mess, who is very grand and insists on pronouncing his name in the French way, says he is "of humble origin."
He seems to have no relations and no visitors.
Out in the corridor I meditate on love.