"This fever, superinduced by the wounds, has a deeper foundation, however," muttered Doctor Herschall. "Watch his temperature, Miss Belinda. Speak to Doctor Potter—although I shall make a note of the case myself."
The attendants were summoned and the Herr Doktor went away to wash his hands and remove the spotted rubber apron. The superintendent of nurses—by courtesy "matron"—bustled in as the still unconscious patient was lifted to the stretcher.
"Let Miss Blaine clean up here and boil the instruments," said the brisk little woman. "I want you to take this patient, Miss Melnotte. Room A-a. He's just been telephoned in about. Why, he's quite a public character!"
"I understand," Belinda said, "that he is a flying-man."
"Yes. Mr. Frank Sanderson. Quite famous, in a way. He fell with his plane over Van Cortlandt Park in the night. There must be something behind it—more than a mere practice flight, it would seem to me. They do not usually go up at night, do they?"
"I really do not know, Mrs. Blythe."
"Well, he is to have the best of everything. And so young a man!" sighed the matron, gazing down upon the face of the aviator. "Give him your best attention, Miss Melnotte. I really feel safe when I put a patient in your care. I wish you were not going to leave us so soon."
"I wish, too, that there might be an opening here," the girl said wistfully.
"Do you, really? It is always the way," sighed the matron. "We graduate so many more nurses than we can possibly use. But you will have small trouble in getting placed, my dear. So many are going into Red Cross work just now."
"I had thought of that," murmured Belinda dreamily.