Miss Maclure looked a trifle shocked at this candid confession, but her brother laughed, and said approvingly—
“That’s right! I admire your honesty. We have far too many nurses who take up the work without any real fitness, and I should be sorry to see you added to the number. Well, let me see! ... After hospital nursing, the next most popular resort is to turn author and write a novel. Have you any leaning in that direction?”
He looked across at Ruth with a humorous twitching of his clean-shaven lips. Once again she felt conscious that the Maclures looked upon her as a pretty child, to be petted and humoured rather than a serious woman of the world, and once again the knowledge brought with it a feeling of rest and comfort.
She crinkled her brows and smiled back at the doctor, answering frankly—
“Oh yes, plenty of leanings! I should love to write, and Mollie and I are always ‘imagining’ to make life more lively and exciting; but, when it comes to sitting down with a pen in my hand, my thoughts seem to take wing and fly away, and the words won’t come. They are all stiff and formal, and won’t express what I want. Mollie gets on better, for she writes as she talks, so it’s natural at least. She wrote quite a long story once, and read it aloud to me as she went on, but it was never finished, and I don’t think for a moment that any paper would have looked at it. The people were all lords and dukes and millionaires, and we don’t know even a knight. I expect it was full of mistakes.”
Dr Maclure smiled and rose from his seat.
“Well, I have some letters to write, so I will leave you to have your talk with Eleanor; but I am starting off again on my rounds in half an hour, and shall be driving past your house. It is a disagreeable evening. Will you let me give you a lift?”
Ruth consented eagerly. The blue serge coat felt none too warm in the bleak east wind, and it would be a relief to be spared the chilly walk, and be bowled along instead in the doctor’s luxurious brougham. She drew her chair nearer to the fire, and proceeded to confide various whys and wherefores to the sympathetic Eleanor—sympathetic, but hardly responsive this afternoon for some mysterious reason. The while Ruth set forward one idea after another, Miss Maclure sat gazing at her with an intent, questioning gaze, as though too much occupied with her own thoughts to grasp the meaning of the conversation. Ruth felt chilled and disappointed, for during the last few days the constant thought in the background of her mind had been, “Eleanor will advise me! Eleanor will know what to do!”
Miss Maclure was a busy woman, whose name figured in a dozen committees. She knew everyone, went everywhere, and her word had weight in guilds, societies, and associations. What could be more easy than for her to find a pleasant and lucrative berth for a pet girl friend, and settle her in it without delay? Ruth had already imagined a touching scene wherein she had been introduced to her future sphere of work, while those in authority overpowered Miss Maclure with thanks for helping them to find the ideal person to fill the vacant post. But Eleanor said nothing, suggested nothing, only sat staring with those grave, questioning eyes!
It was almost a relief when the half-hour was over, and the doctor gave the summons for departure. Then Eleanor came back to the present once more, and was all that was kind and loving.