"Quite, I hope, in that connection—my unworthy self," and Mona told the story of her little adventure.
"Well, really," said Lucy indignantly, "those juniors want a good setting down. I never heard such a piece of bare-faced impudence in my life. What on earth do they know about you, except that you are one of the best students in the School?"
"There, there, firebrand!" said Mona, much relieved to see the old Lucy again, "I think you and I have been known to say as much as that of our betters. In truth, it did me a world of good. I was very morbid about going back to the anatomy-room—partly because I had got out of tune with the work, partly because I knew nobody would know what to say to me, and there would be an awkward choice between constrained remarks and more constrained silences. It was a great relief to find myself and my failures taken frankly for granted. How I wish people could learn that, unless they can be superlatively tactful, it is better not to be tactful at all; for of tact it is more true than of anything else, that ars est celare artem. But, to return to the point we started from, there is a great deal of truth in what Miss Lascelles said. For the next four months I am going to spend my life driving in nails."
Lucy shivered. "Couldn't you screw them in?" she suggested. "It would make so much less noise."
Mona reflected for a moment. "No," she said, "there is something in the idea of a good sharp rap with the hammer that gives relief to my injured feelings." And she brought her closed fist on the table with a force that sent a ruddy glow across her white knuckles.
"And now," she said, "it is your innings. I want to know so many things. How do you like hospital?"
"Oh, it is awfully interesting;" but Lucy's manner was not enthusiastic. "I spotted a presystolic murmur yesterday."
"H'm. Who said it was a presystolic? Did not you find it very cold coming back to London from the sunny South?"
Lucy shivered again. "It was horrid," she said.
"And you really had a good, gay, light-hearted time?"