This was not the strictly proper thing to do, and Travers knew it. Ledyard was always challenging his undignified tendencies.
"Unless doctors and nurses can leave their sex outside their profession," was a pet epigram of Ledyard's, "they had better choose another."
But Travers had never been able to fulfil his partner's ideal.
"It was a wonderful operation," he said. "I hope it did not overtire you. You will get hardened after a while."
"I am not at all tired. Yes, it was—wonderful! I did not know any operation could be like that—I mean in the way that it was done. I have always been afraid of Doctor Ledyard before; all of us are; I shall never be again."
"May I ask why?"
Travers, being young and vital, was forgetting, for the moment, his professional air to a dangerous extent. He was noticing the strange coloured hair under the snowy cap, the poise of the head, the deep violet eyes in the richly tinted face.
"It was that—well, the look on his face after he had done all that he could—done it so wonderfully. That look was—a prayer! I shall never forget."
Travers gave a light laugh.
"It would be like Doctor Ledyard," he said with a peculiarly boyish ring in his voice, "to do his part first and pray afterward."