In the nurses’ cafeteria the first group were beginning to choose their lunches. The white uniforms of the graduate nurses and the blue uniforms of the student nurses with their white collars and cuffs reflected the glare from the thin curtains at the sunlit windows.
Near a table occupied by four student nurses sat Rose Standish, head nurse in the accident room. Her small ivory face was buried in a volume of “Sonnets from the Portuguese” and she guided the teaspoons of gelatine and whipped cream into her mouth by a sense of feeling, not sight. Her outer eye was transferring to her inner one the charm of a mind drenched in the world’s great love.
The student nurse with a raucous Kansas whine was saying:
“What’s happened to ’Lina Kerr?”
“I don’t know. Why?” responded a flat Alabama drawl.
“I saw her in the corridor with two supervisors at ten o’clock and Minnie says they’ve got her locked in her room and won’t let anybody talk to her. She ... she ... looked frightful.”
“Where have you been for the last week?” a Virginian purred. “Three people have died on the ward where she has night duty and they all are trying to blame it on her.”
“Have you lost your mind, Lizzie?” sneered the Alabamian.
“Well, if you don’t believe me, why did you ask me? They had her up before the General Staff this morning.”
“Honest?”