The President bowed her courteously out of the board-room, while the primroses in the green Devonshire bowl on his desk still nodded guilelessly.
V
ODDS AND ENDS
Margaret MacLean walked the length of the first corridor; once out of sight and hearing, she tore up the stairs, her cheeks crimson and her eyes suspiciously moist. Before she had reached the second flight the House Surgeon overtook her.
"I wish," he panted behind her, trying his best to look the big-brother way of old—"I wish you'd wait a moment. This habit of yours of always walking up is a beastly one."
"Don't worry about it." There was a sharp, metallic ring in her voice that made it unnatural. "That's one habit that will soon be broken."
The House Surgeon smiled rather helplessly; inside he was making one of the few prayers of his life—a prayer to keep Margaret MacLean free of bitterness. "There is something I want to say to you," he began.
She broke in feverishly: "No, there isn't! And I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear you're sorry. I don't want to hear they'll be taken care of—somewhere—somehow. I think I should scream if you told me it was bound to happen—or will all turn out for the best."
"I had no intention of saying any of those things—in fact, they hadn't even entered my mind. What I was going to—"
"Oh, I know. You were going to remind me of what you said this morning. Almost prophetic, wasn't it?" And there was a strong touch of irony in her laugh. She turned on him crushingly. "Perhaps you knew it all along. Perhaps it was your way of letting me down gently."