I had grown accustomed to Maida in her stern white uniform. Now her black hair and the sword-blue of her eyes and the vivid pink that flared into her cheeks and lips at the least touch of excitement—all this, above a wispy, clinging dinner gown of midnight-blue that was somehow barely frosted in crystal beads, affected me much as it did the boy.
“Gee!” he breathed finally.
Maida laughed a little tremulously; the compliment in his eyes was pathetically genuine.
“Don’t be silly, Sonny,” she said, but her blue eyes shone. “How is the new cast?”
“Oh—all right,” said Sonny gamely.
“I’ll come in and tell you about the party when we get back,” promised Maida (knowing that in the agony of a ten-hour-old cast he would still be awake).
“Gee,” said Sonny again, “will you, Miss Day?”
“Yes,” said Maida with that grave sincerity that was one of her charms. “Ready, Sarah?”
I followed Maida from the room and along the corridor south to the end of the wing. Once through the door and across the small porch we reached the path that wound through the orchard, over a small bridge, and across a field of sweet-smelling alfalfa to the Letheny cottage.
The path is not wide enough for two abreast, so Maida preceded me and I found myself studying her slim shoulders and gracefully alert carriage. Maida always seemed to me to be poised on the crest of a wave; as if she were continually victorious and yet not arrogant. She is that rare thing, a born nurse. She can deal successfully with the most difficult hypochondriacs and yet I have seen her in furious, desperate tears over a case like Sonny’s. It is not my intention to rhapsodize over Maida. I suppose I admired her because she was so gloriously what I might have been in my younger days had things been a little different. Though, of course, I am not and never was the beauty that Maida was.