“Only my father says,” she confided obediently—“my father says, ‘if you’ve got a worse foot, for Heaven’s sake, put it forward, and get it over with!’
“So I’ve got to call it a spree,” smiled the White Linen Nurse; “’cause when I think of marrying a surgeon that goes off and gets drunk every June, it—it scares me almost to death; but—” Abruptly the red smile faded from her lips, the blue smile from her eyes—“but when I think of marrying a—June drunk that’s got the grit to pull up absolutely straight as a die and be a surgeon all the other ’leven months in the year?” Dartingly she bent down and kissed the Senior Surgeon’s astonished wrist. “Oh, then I think you’re perfectly grand!” she sobbed.
Awkwardly the Senior Surgeon pulled away and began to pace the floor.
“You’re a good little girl, Rae Malgregor,” he mumbled huskily—“a good little girl. I truly believe you’re the kind that will see me through.” Poignantly in his eyes humiliation overwhelmed the mist. Perversely in its turn resentment overtook the humiliation. “But I won’t be married in June,” he reasserted bombastically. “I won’t, I won’t, I won’t. I tell you I positively refuse to have a lot of damned fools speculating about my private affairs, wondering why I didn’t take you, wondering why I didn’t stay home with you. I tell you I won’t. I surely won’t.”
“Yes, sir,” whimpered the White Linen Nurse.
With a real gasp of relief the Senior Surgeon stopped his eternal pacing of the floor.
“Bully for you!” he said. “You mean then we’ll be married some time in July after I get back from my—trip?”
“Oh, no, sir,” whimpered the White Linen Nurse.
“But, great Heavens!” shouted the Senior Surgeon.
“Yes, sir,” the White Linen Nurse began all over again. Dreamily planning out her wedding-gown, her lips without the slightest conscious effort on her part were already curving into shape for her alternate “No, sir.”