“Woman a mystery?” Harshly the phrase ripped through the Senior Surgeon’s brain. Croakingly in that instant all the grim, gray scientific years re-overtook him, swamped him, strangled him. “Woman a mystery? O ye gods! And youth? Bah! Youth! A mere tinsel tinkle on a rotting Christmas-tree!”
Furiously with renewed venom he turned and threw his weight again upon the stubbornly resistant crank of his automobile.
Vaguely disturbed by the noise and vibration, the White Linen Nurse opened her big drowsy blue eyes upon him.
“Don’t—jerk it so!” she admonished hazily; “you’ll wake the Little Girl!”
“Well, what about my convenience, I’d like to know?” snapped the Senior Surgeon, in some astonishment.
Heavily the White Linen Nurse’s lashes shadowed down again across her sleep-flushed cheeks.
“Oh, never mind about that,” she mumbled non-concernedly.
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, wake up there!” bellowed the Senior Surgeon above the sudden roar of his engine.
Adroitly for a man of his bulk he ran around the radiator and jumped into his seat. Joggled unmercifully into wakefulness, the Little Girl greeted his return with a generous, if distinctly non-tactful, demonstration of affection. Grabbing the unwitting fingers of his momentarily free hand, she tapped them proudly against the White Linen Nurse’s plump pink cheek.
“See, I call her ‘Peach’!” she boasted joyously, with all the triumphant air of one who felt assured that mental discrimination such as this could not possibly fail to impress even a person as naturally obtuse as a father.