"Oh, I suppose not. But I hate it. Women ought to be happy—care-free, not shut up in sick rooms or running around in the rain."
"Oh, you men, how little you know what makes a woman happy." She stopped, and half rose from her chair. "Captain Hewes is coming."
"I don't know that I am glad, Drusilla," the Doctor turned to survey the beaming officer, "for now you won't have eyes or ears for me."
But she was glad.
While the Captain held her hand in his as if he would never let her go, she told him about being fluted and starched. "I don't look as dishevelled as I did the other day."
"You looked beautiful the other day," he assured her with fervor, "but this is better, because you are rested and some of the sadness has gone out of your eyes."
Dr. McKenzie watched them enviously, "I realize," he reminded them, "that I am the fifth wheel, or any other superfluous thing, but you can't get rid of me. I am homesick—somebody's got to cheer me up."
"We don't want to get rid of you," Drusilla told him, smiling.
But he knew that her loveliness was all for the Captain. She was lighted up by the presence of her betrothed, made exquisite, softer, more womanly. Love had come slowly to Drusilla, but it had come at last.
When the Doctor left them, he was in a daze of loneliness. He wanted Jean, he wanted sympathy, understanding, good-comradeship.