He smiled down at her. "There you go."
"Well, it is wonderful." She fell again into silence, then again bestowed upon him her raptures. "Wouldn't it be dreadful if we had loveless days, Daddy, as well as meatless ones and wheatless?"
That night, after Jean had gone to bed, the Doctor, having dismissed his last patient, came out of his inner office. Hilda, in her white nurse's costume, was busy with the books. He stood beside her desk. His eyes were dancing. "Jean told me about the steak."
"I knew she would—I suppose it was an awful thing to do. But I was hungry, and I hate fish—" She smiled at him lazily, then laughed.
He laughed back. He felt that it would be unbearable for Hilda to go hungry, to spoil her red and white with abstinence.
"My dear girl," he said, "what did you mean when you spoke of going away?"
"Haven't you been thinking of going?"
The color came up in his cheeks. "Yes, but how did you know it?"
"Well, a woman knows. Why don't you make up your mind?"
"There's Jean to think of."