"A curious experience," said Hallin. "I suppose you had never obeyed any one in your life before?"
"Not since I was at school—and then—not much!"
Hallin glanced at her as she lay back in her chair. How richly human the face had grown! It was as forcible as ever in expression and colour, but that look which had often repelled him in his first acquaintance with her, as of a hard speculative eagerness more like the ardent boy than the woman, had very much disappeared. It seemed to him absorbed in something new—something sad and yet benignant, informed with all the pathos and the pain of growth.
"How long have you been at work to-day?" he asked her.
"I went at eleven last night. I came away at four this afternoon."
Hallin exclaimed, "You had food?"
"Do you think I should let myself starve with my work to do?" she asked him, with a shade of scorn and her most professional air. "And don't suppose that such a case occurs often. It is a very rare thing for us to undertake night-nursing at all."
"Can you tell me what the case was?"
She told him vaguely, describing also in a few words her encounter with
Dr. Blank.
"I suppose he will make a fuss," she said, with a restless look, "and that I shall be blamed."