The girl actually took it for granted that she enjoyed being an old maid.
“I’ll have a little house in the country all covered with honeysuckle, and a pony-trap and a dog and a cat and you’ll come and stay with me.”
“I thought you were going to be a hospital nurse,” said Clementina.
“So I am; but I’ll live in the house when I’m off duty.”
Clementina rolled a cigarette. Etta knelt bolt upright and offered a lighted match. Now when a lissom-figured girl kneels bolt upright, with a shapely head thrown ever so little back, and stretches out her arm, there are few things more adorable in this world of beauty. Clementina looked at her for full ten seconds with the eyes of a Moses on Mount Nebo—supposing (a bewildering hypothesis) that Moses had been an artist and a woman—and then, disregarding cigarette and lighted match, she laid her hands on the girl’s shoulders and shook her gently so that she sank back on her heels, and the match went out.
“Oh, you dear, delightful, silly, silly child.”
She rose abruptly and went to the mantelpiece and lit the cigarette for herself. Etta laughed in blushing confusion.
“But darling, nurses do have times off now and then.”
“I wasn’t thinking about nurses at all,” said Clementina.
“Then what were you thinking of?” asked Etta; still sitting on her heels and craning her head round.