"I suppose it was only a lover's quarrel," she suggested.
His eyes twinkled, too. "She's a cranky old thing. I ought to jilt her. And after this—well, she slapped me with that propeller good and plenty. How much will it set me back, Nurse? How long must I lie here? Is that shoulder seriously hurt?"
"Nothing is broken," she assured him cheerfully.
"Except my head," and he felt the bandage tenderly.
"Oh, that's nothing."
"Ow! I bet that hurt me," he grinned. "So complimentary——"
"Now I must take your temperature. You may talk no longer," she said severely.
He watched her with a rather quizzical gaze as she moved about the room while he "smoked the glass pipe." If she apprehended his scrutiny she was so careless of it—or so well balanced of mind—that she displayed not the slightest self-consciousness.
He found himself cataloging in his rather hazy thoughts the several attributes of person and manner that made Belinda Melnotte an attractive and most refreshing personality to him. Her calm was matronly; but her exquisite complexion, her ripe lips, the tendrils of hair that clustered about the edge of her cap, her full and brilliant eyes, were all virginal.
She moved with an air of perfect self-confidence. Her hand was not small, but was very soft, very beautifully formed, and had the firm clasp of a man's. Her bared forearm and wrist, tapering from the elbow, was worthy of being modeled. The shadows that lay in the curves of her neck lent the appearance of ivory to the flesh.