Standing patiently behind the Senior Surgeon’s chair with a laudable desire to assist his carving in any possible emergency that might occur, the White Linen Nurse experienced her first direct marital rebuff.
“What do you think this is, an autopsy?” demanded the Senior Surgeon, tartly. “For Heaven’s sake, go and sit down!”
Quite meekly the White Linen Nurse subsided into her place.
The meal that ensued could hardly have been called a success, though the room was entrancing, the cloth snow-white, the silver radiant, the guinea-chicken beyond reproach.
Swept and garnished to an alarming degree, the young Wall-Paper Man presided over the gravy and did his uttermost, innocent country-best to make the Senior Surgeon feel perfectly at home.
Conscientiously, as in the presence of a distinguished stranger, the Little Crippled Girl most palpably from time to time repressed her insatiable desire to build a towering pyramid out of all the salt-and pepper-shakers she could reach.
Once when the young Wall-Paper Man forgot himself to the extent of putting his knife in his mouth, the White Linen Nurse jarred the whole table with the violence of her warning kick.
Once when the Little Crippled Girl piped out impulsively, “Say, Peach, what was the name of that bantam your father used to fight against the minister’s bantam?” the White Linen Nurse choked piteously over her food.
Twice some one spoke about this year’s weather. Twice some one volunteered an illuminating remark about last year’s weather. Except for these four diversions, restraint indescribable hung like a horrid pall over the feast.