“All this talk of yours about wanting to be married the same day I start off on my—Canadian trip,” he contended, “why, it’s all damned nonsense.”
“Yes, sir,” said the White Linen Nurse.
Very conscientiously the Senior Surgeon began to search for a fleck of dust on his other cuff.
“Why, my—my dear girl,” he persisted, “it’s absurd, it’s outrageous! Why, people would—would hoot at us! Why, they’d think—”
“Yes, sir,” said the White Linen Nurse.
“Why, my dear girl,” sweated the Senior Surgeon, “even though you and I understand perfectly well the purely formal, businesslike conditions of our marriage, we must at least, for sheer decency’s sake, keep up a certain semblance of marital conventionality before the world. Why, if we were married at noon the first day of June as you suggest, and I should go right off alone as usual on my Canadian trip, and you should come back alone to the house, why, people would think—would think that I didn’t care anything about you.”
“But you don’t,” said the White Linen Nurse, serenely.
“Why, they’d think,” choked the Senior Surgeon—“they’d think you were trying your—darndest to get rid of me.”
“I am,” said the White Linen Nurse, complacently.
With a muttered ejaculation the Senior Surgeon jumped to his feet and stood glaring down at her.