This was, of course, because of his soul, which was all he had, and which, having existed from the beginning, was incredibly old. The little dead mother could have told them that he was less than thirty.
The Probationer sat winding bandages. Now and then they went crooked and had to be done again. She was very tired. The creaking of the bandage machine made her nervous—that and a sort of disillusionment; for was this her great mission, this sitting in a silent, sunny ward, where the double row of beds held only querulous convalescent women? How close was she to life who had come to soothe the suffering and close the eyes of the dying; who had imagined that her instruments of healing were a thermometer and a prayer-book; and who found herself fighting the good fight with a bandage machine and, even worse, a scrubbing brush and a finetooth comb?
The Senior Nurse, having finished the M's, glanced up and surprised a tear on the Probationer's round young cheek. She was wise, having trained many probationers.
"Go to first supper, please," she said. First supper is the Senior's prerogative; but it is given occasionally to juniors and probationers as a mark of approval, or when the Senior is not hungry, or when a probationer reaches the breaking point, which is just before she gets her uniform.
The Probationer smiled and brightened. After all, she must be doing fairly well; and if she were not in the battle she was of it. Glimpses she had of the battle—stretchers going up and down in the slow elevator; sheeted figures on their way to the operating room; the clang of the ambulance bell in the courtyard; the occasional cry of a new life ushered in; the impressive silence of an old life going out. She surveyed the bandages on the bed.
"I'll put away the bandages first," she said. "That's what you said, I think—never to leave the emergency bed with anything on it?"
"Right-oh!" said the Senior.
"Though nothing ever happens back here—does it?'
"It's about our turn; I'm looking for a burned case." The Probationer, putting the bandages into a basket, turned and stared.
"We have had two in to-day in the house," the Senior went on, starting on the N's and making the capital carefully. "There will be a third, of course; and we may get it. Cases always seem to run in threes. While you're straightening the bed I suppose I might as well go to supper after all."