"Don't you know Paul Courtland?" she demanded, imperiously.
"I never heard the name before!"
Bonnie's voice was steady, and her eyes looked coolly into the other girl's. The nurse looked at Bonnie and marveled. She knew the name of Paul Courtland well; she telephoned to that name every day. How was it that the girl did not know it? She liked this girl and the man who had brought her here and been so anxious about her. But who on earth was this huzzy in fur?
Gila looked at Bonnie madly. Her stare said as plainly as words could have done: "You lie! You do know him!" But Gila's lips said, scornfully, "Aren't you the poor girl whose kid brother got killed by an automobile in the street?"
Across Bonnie's stricken face there flashed a spasm of pain and her very lips grew white.
"I thought so!" sneered Gila, rushing on with her insult. "And yet you deny that you ever heard Paul Courtland's name! He picked up the kid and carried it in the house and ran errands for you, but you don't know him! That's gratitude for you! I told him the working-class were all like that. I have no doubt he has paid for this very room that you are lying in!"
"Stop!" cried Bonnie, sitting up, her eyes like two stars, her face white to the very lips. "You have no right to come here and talk like that! I cannot understand who could have sent you! Certainly not the courteous stranger who picked up my little brother. I do not know his name, nor anything about him, but I can assure you that I shall not allow him nor any one else to pay my bills. Now will you take your things and leave my room? I am feeling very—tired!"
The voice suddenly trailed off into silence and Bonnie dropped back limply upon the pillow.
The nurse sprang like an angry bear who has seen somebody troubling her cubs. She touched vigorously a button in the wall as she passed and swooped down upon the tawdry finery, stuffing it unceremoniously into the box; then she turned upon the little fur-trimmed lady, placed a capable arm about her slim waist, and scooped her out of the room. Flinging the bulging box down at her feet, where it gaped widely, gushing forth in pink, blue, cerise, and silver, she shut the door and flew back to her charge.
Down the hall hurried the emergency doctor, formidable in his white-linen uniform. When Gila looked up from the confusion at her feet she encountered the gaze of a pair of grave and disapproving eyes behind a pair of fascinating tortoise-shell goggles. She was not accustomed to disapproval in masculine eyes and it infuriated her.