Graham was certain that he supported his mother in trying to keep him at home, and he began to hate him with a healthy young hate. However, late in April, he posed in one of the pageants, rather ungraciously, in a khaki uniform. It was not until the last minute that he knew that Delight Haverford was to be the nurse bending over his prostrate figure. He turned rather savage.
“Rotten nonsense,” he said to her, “when they stood waiting to be posed.
“Oh, I don't know. They're rather pretty.”
“Pretty! Do you suppose I want it be pretty?”
“Well, I do,” said Delight, calmly.
“It's fake. That's what I hate. If you were really a nurse, and was really in uniform—! But this parading in somebody else's clothes, or stuff hired for the occasion—it's sickening.”
Delight regarded him with clear, appraising eyes.
“Why don't you get a uniform of your own, then?” she inquired. She smiled a little.
He never knew what the effort cost her. He was pale and angry, and his face in the tableau was so set that it brought a round of applause. With the ringing down of the curtain he confronted her, almost menacingly.
“What did you mean by that?” he demanded. “We've hardly got into this thing yet.”