However, Sonya knew herself to be prejudiced and not so much by Ruth herself as by reason of her close friendship with Theodosia Thompson and the younger girl's undoubted influence upon her.
Thea had been right in her supposition that Mrs. Clark neither liked nor trusted her particularly, although Sonya herself had scarcely been aware of her own point of view until after the beginning of the journey of her Red Cross unit toward Germany. Since then Sonya was not at all sure that Thea might not prove an uncomfortable if not an actually mischievous influence.
One of Dr. Clark's old students at a prominent New York Medical University and afterwards his assistant, Dr. Hugh Raymond, was a young physician in whom the older man had extraordinary confidence and for whom he hoped great things. In the Red Cross hospital near Château-Thierry he had done splendid and untiring work. But both Sonya and her husband had often smiled over the young doctor's apparent dislike of women and girls. Not even with Sonya herself had he been willing to be more than coldly friendly.
Yet since the movement of their unit toward the Rhine, Sonya had noticed an odd change in him. At first it had appeared as if Thea's attempts to make him show an interest in her had simply annoyed him. Later she seemed to provoke him. Recently Sonya believed Thea was having a marked effect upon him, sometimes aggravating and at other times pleasing him. And although Sonya believed she understood human nature, she also realized that nothing would irritate her husband more profoundly than to discover any kind of personal feeling existing between his nurses and physicians. During all the Red Cross work in Europe from this complication they had been singularly free.
Moreover, Sonya did not consider that Theodosia Thompson was seriously interested in Dr. Raymond. It was her personal opinion that Thea simply desired admiration and attention, because her nature was restless and dissatisfied.
And it was with the two nurses, Ruth Carroll and Theodosia Thompson, that Sonya had her first real grievance since the beginning of her Red Cross work.
Among the patients who had been brought to the temporary Luxemburg hospital was Major James Hersey, who had been in command of a battalion near Château-Thierry and had been taken ill with influenza along the route of the march toward Germany.
Perhaps Major Jimmie had been longing too ardently to accompany his picked troops to the left bank of the Rhine; however, he was at present pretty seriously ill.
All day Sonya had been caring for him and at about four o'clock in the afternoon she was beginning to feel that she was growing too tired to be left alone. Major Hersey was delirious and already it was long past the hour when Theodosia Thompson had been expected to relieve her. Yet she continued to wait patiently, not daring to leave her charge even for a moment.
Four o'clock passed and then five and no one entered the sick room, not even one of the Red Cross physicians, and Sonya had been expecting a call from Dr. Raymond some time during the afternoon.