"There should never be any question of that."
"David, I've only told you the one side. If that girl were my very own I should pluck her out of that particular fire. I'd get down on my knees and beg her pardon for having thrown her into it. It burns up their youth, their bloom, their originality, their modesty. It thrusts the girls into a charnel house of sin, sickness, and death. It shatters the nervous system of nine out of ten, or it leaves them calm, steady, burnt-out women, who have been behind the scenes of life and are disillusioned. When that little pink and white thing sat there and told me of some of the awful situations that she'd been placed in, and over which she was made responsible, the tears rolled down my face. I forgave her lots of things."
"Plenty of refined, educated women with a very different bringing up from Mary's go through the same."
"Well, I advised her to go on and finish the course, if only to show her friends, and enemies, the stuff she's made of. When I think of those free wards, and the menial, disgusting offices that frail little girl has to perform! What did she sow that she should reap this fighting in the thickest of the fight, so poorly equipped?"
"I dare say there are alleviations."
"Oh, yes! She flirts—says she'd die if she didn't—with every man in the place, from the elevator boy to the head doctor, and, really, I excused her. The head nurse in Mary's ward is very harsh with her, but I let her and everyone in the place understand that Miss Gemmell is no stray waif without influence to back her. Every day I send out thought-waves—hypnotism—whatever you like to call it—to compel that Dean woman to think of something else than the making of trained nurses, and physical wrecks at the same time. People are greater than institutions."
"The discipline will be the making of Mary."
