“Oh, no!” said the White Linen Nurse. “Oh, no, sir! Oh, no, indeed, sir!” Quite perceptibly she jerked her way backward a little on the grass. “Thank you very much,” she persisted courteously. “It’s been very interesting. I thank you very much for telling me, but—”
“But what?” snapped the Senior Surgeon.
“But it’s too quick,” said the White Linen Nurse. “No man could tell like that, just between one eye-wink and another, what he wanted about anything, let alone marrying a perfect stranger.”
Instantly the Senior Surgeon bridled.
“I assure you, my dear young lady,” he retorted, “that I am entirely and completely accustomed to deciding between ‘one wink and another’ just exactly what it is that I want. Indeed, I assure you that there are a good many people living to-day who wouldn’t be living if it had taken me even as long as a wink and three quarters to make up my mind.”
“Yes, I know, sir,” acknowledged the White Linen Nurse. “Yes, of course, sir,” she acquiesced, with most commendable humility; “but all the same, sir, I couldn’t do it,” she persisted with inflexible positiveness. “Why, I haven’t enough education,” she confessed quite shamelessly.
“You had enough, I notice, to get into the hospital with,” drawled the Senior Surgeon, a bit grumpily, “and that’s quite as much as most people have, I assure you. ‘A high-school education or its equivalent,’—that is the hospital requirement, I believe?” he questioned tartly.
“‘A high-school education or its—equivocation’ is what we girls call it,” confessed the White Linen Nurse, demurely. “But even so, sir,” she pleaded, “it isn’t just my lack of education. It’s my brains. I tell you, sir, I haven’t got enough brains to do what you suggest.”
“I don’t mean at all to belittle your brains,” grinned the Senior Surgeon despite himself,—“oh, not at all, Miss Malgregor,—but, you see, it isn’t especially brains that I’m looking for. Really, what I need most,” he acknowledged frankly, “is an extra pair of hands to go with the—brains I already possess.”
“Yes, I know, sir,” persisted the White Linen Nurse. “Yes, of course, sir,” she conceded. “Yes, of course, sir, my hands work awfully well—with your face. But all the same,” she kindled suddenly—“all the same, sir, I can’t. I won’t! I tell you, sir, I won’t! Why, I’m not in your world, sir. Why, I’m not in your class. Why, my folks aren’t like your folks. Oh, we’re just as good as you, of course, but we aren’t as nice. Oh, we’re not nice at all. Really and truly we’re not.” Desperately through her mind she rummaged up and down for some one conclusive fact that would close this torturing argument for all time. “Why, my father eats with his knife!” she asserted triumphantly.