"And Dr. Carruthers thinks so, too. Wouldn't it be nice if they made a match of it?"
She was astounded by the heat of his reply. "No! A Scotch dromedary, suckled on predestination and damnation of infants? Pretty husband he'd make!" But she solved his vehemence for Hart's benefit on the way home. "He's in love with her himself."
"Between patient and doctor? What a mix-up!" Hart laughed. "Odds are on the doctor if he's up to his job. I'd hate to be Carter on the chance of an overdose." For which flippancy his ears were well pulled.
As he said, things were undoubtedly a little tangled, and if at first glance it would appear that Dorothy had not assisted in the unravelling, closer scrutiny shows that her remark helped at least to bring affairs to a head. For the remainder of the day Carter was very thoughtful, so preoccupied that he forgot to misbehave over his supper-tray while, time and again, Helen caught him surveying herself with a dark uneasiness. Puzzled, she came back to the ward before leaving and stood at the foot of his bed; but as yet his fever was confined to his mind, and he replied that he was feeling quite well to her question.
The "good-night" she wished him was not, however, for him. Always darkness magnifies trouble, and through its black lens he saw suspicions as facts. Tossing restlessly, he heard the city clock chime the quarters, halves, hours, until, at twelve, the night nurse's lantern revealed him wide-eyed, staring, and knowing the efficacy of a change of thought in producing sleep, she stayed for a chat.
Correct enough in theory, the treatment proved about as successful as would the application of a blister upon a sore; for he bent the conversation to his own uses, steering it by a circuitous route through the girl's own experience to Helen.
She was liked in the hospital?
Indeed she was! The night nurse was emphatic on that, and went on to say that beauty such as Helen's was not generally conducive of popularity. No, it wasn't jealousy! The nurse tossed her head at his question. Simply that pretty girls didn't have to be nice, so usually left amiability to be assumed with a double chin; and being a frank as well as a merry creature, she confessed to an accession of that desirable quality every time she saw her own nose in a glass. But Helen Morrill? She was sweet as she was pretty!
Dr. Carruthers thought so, too?
Well—the nurse would smile! And everybody in the hospital was glad of it. They would make such a perfect couple, an ideal match!