Nona was by this time standing up looking very grave and angry.
The yellow light through the window flooded her white nurse’s dress to the color of her hair.
She was like a slender yellow lily, as cold and as remote, which Jack Martin remembered growing in certain aristocratic gardens he had seen in the South.
“I am your nurse, Lieutenant Martin, if you wish me to continue to care for you, please never say anything of that character again, else you make my work impossible.”
Then to Nona’s intense relief she heard someone at the door with her patient’s dinner.
This was not her first experience of this kind. Men who are convalescing are apt to make love to their nurses from a combination of sentimentality and gratitude. But for some reason Nona felt especially annoyed and surprised.
Yet she did not observe Lieutenant Jack Martin’s jaw set, nor his gray eyes flash as he said softly to himself,
“But I shall not always be your patient, my lady.”
CHAPTER XI
The Undertow
NONA’S absorption in her work of nursing Lieutenant Martin had naturally separated her from any complete knowledge of what was taking place outside the hospital during the time.