“‘Heartwork’ was what I said,” persisted the Senior Surgeon. Palpably his narrowing eyes shut out all meaning but one definite one.
The White Linen Nurse’s face became almost as blanched as her dress.
“You’re—you’re not asking me to—marry you, sir?” she stammered.
“I suppose I am,” acknowledged the Senior Surgeon.
“Not marry you!” cried the White Linen Nurse. Distress was in her voice, distaste, unmitigable shock, as though the high gods themselves had fallen at her feet and splintered off into mere candy fragments. “Oh, not marry you, sir?” she kept right on protesting. “Not be—engaged, you mean? Oh, not be engaged—and everything?”
“Well, why not?” snapped the Senior Surgeon.
Like a smitten flower the girl’s whole body seemed to wilt down into incalculable weariness.
“Oh, no, no! I couldn’t!” she protested. “Oh, no, really!” Appealingly she lifted her great blue eyes to his, and the blueness was all blurred with tears. “I’ve—I’ve been engaged once, you know,” she explained falteringly. “Why—I was engaged, sir—almost as soon as I was born, and I stayed engaged till two years ago. That’s almost twenty years. That’s a long time, sir. You don’t get over it—easy.” Very, very gravely she began to shake her head. “Oh, no, sir! No! Thank you—very much, but I—I just simply couldn’t begin at the beginning and go all through it again. I haven’t got the heart for it. I haven’t got the spirit. Carving your initials on trees and—and gadding round to all the Sunday-school picnics—”
Brutally, like a boy, the Senior Surgeon threw back his head in one wild hoot of joy. Much more cautiously, as the agonizing pang in his shoulder lulled down again, he proceeded to argue the matter, but the grin in his face was even yet faintly traceable.