"A professional nurse!" Mr. Maxwell cried, his face lighting up as a hundred hazy memories came flooding over him. "In El Paso—my God! Of course!"
He came up to me and caught my arm.
"This is what you mean?" he asked.
Mrs. Chalmers' eyes were fixed on me in a kind of fascinated wonder. How could any one go against Richard's expressed wish? But my own eyes were meeting hers steadily as I turned to answer Mr. Maxwell's pleading question.
"Yes, that is what I mean. Sophie belongs to the great army of the Red Cross!"
CHAPTER XV
THE DOUGLAS IN HIS HALL
As is frequently the case when I have gone to bed late and in a perturbed state of mind, I awake early, with a heavy feeling between my eyes and a marked distaste to getting up. It was so this morning, except I had an indistinct impression that, instead of waking normally, I had been awakened by some unusual noise.
I turned over in bed and looked around the room for a few minutes before I began to think of the effort of getting up. I had by no means forgotten that Richard was coming—might already be here, as the spasmodic bursts of sunshine indicated that it was at least seven o'clock—but he would not expect me to do anything so unusual as to dress this early and meet him down-stairs for a few minutes' stolen happiness before we should meet and shake hands formally at the breakfast table. The bliss of such a secret little reunion might, doubtless would, appeal to most lovers, but not to Cœur de Lion. He would see in it only the impropriety of a young woman meeting a man in a deserted library in the early hours of the morning. Richard has this way of throwing—well, not exactly cold water, but iced lemonade, over the exuberance of my youthful feelings! I wish this were not so, but—