You’ll bring the doctor—and Miss Macdonald, if she’ll come.”
As she bent over the wheel in her red motoring outfit, with the wind whipping a bright color in her cheeks, and her eyes dark and glowing, she seemed like nothing so much as a brilliant scarlet tanager, poised for flight. It was unreasonable, he reflected, to expect a girl like that to conform to standards set for ordinary people. Her heart was in the right place, however irresponsible she might seem sometimes. How thoughtful she had been for the children.
In the house the women were clearing away the litter from the day’s work. Ruth was still busy. Her white uniform had lost some of its crispness; her face was flushed; her hair was straying out from under her nurse’s cowl. It had been a busy day. She was testing the heat of some irons on the stove when Billy came in.
“Are you nearly through?” he asked. “Is there anything I can do? I want to take you to Evison’s for dinner.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, “but we’ve just had another patient come in. The doctor’s operating now.”
“And what are you going to do?”
“Iron his bed.”
He smiled to think she knew the homely trick; then a sharp, pained look crossed his face.
“My mother used to do that,” he said.
She put the iron down and looked at him just as she had done when she followed him home from his mother’s funeral and heard him sob out his agony for the things he couldn’t help.