It was while she was standing by the great sterilizer that she heard, through an open door, part of a conversation that sent her through the day with her world in revolt.
The talkers were putting the anaesthetizing-room in readiness for the afternoon. Sidney, waiting for the time to open the sterilizer, was busy, for the first time in her hurried morning, with her own thoughts. Because she was very human, there was a little exultation in her mind. What would these girls say when they learned of how things stood between her and their hero—that, out of all his world of society and clubs and beautiful women, he was going to choose her?
Not shameful, this: the honest pride of a woman in being chosen from many.
The voices were very clear.
“Typhoid! Of course not. She's eating her heart out.”
“Do you think he has really broken with her?”
“Probably not. She knows it's coming; that's all.”
“Sometimes I have wondered—”
“So have others. She oughtn't to be here, of course. But among so many there is bound to be one now and then who—who isn't quite—”
She hesitated, at a loss for a word.