He gripped the hand of the nurse as he would have done that of a man. Afterward Ravant watched the girl as she “went about doing good” for him—as he gibed it. She tried to keep out of his vision. “What in the devil are you about?” he commanded. “I want to look at you! It does me good—to look at you!” She came, with a pink face, where he could see her. “If it does you good—why, look at me!” She tried to do it lightly—pose there—but her bosom heaved. Ravant saw this. [Illustration: “_‘I guess you’re the right sort,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Put it there!’_”] “Yes, I’ve stopped guessing. You _are_ the right sort—inside. And you’re not half as ugly outside as I thought you at first. Or else you’ve grown prettier. I think it’s that. I suppose they make it a point to hire only ugly girls for nurses. Else the patients would marry ’em as fast as they could gather ’em in, and there would never be any nurses. But you’ve fooled ’em! Look in the glass!” It was useless to resist what had now become affectionate brutality, and she did this. It was true that there was a glow in her hollow cheeks. “Thank you!” “By the Lord, you nearly laughed!” said Ravant, with entire seriousness. “Say—I’m going to like you. And I want you to try to like me. If I ever ask for whiskey again, don’t you give it to me, no matter if I curse you up hill and down dale. And I’ll try not to ask for it.” The nurse stopped something which would have been a sob at maturity. “But for God’s sake, don’t cry,” Ravant went on. “I hate women who cry. And I’m not hating you—I see that already.” “I will not cry!” pledged the nurse. “I believe you,” said Ravant. “Put it there. I won’t drink!” And for the second time they shook hands. III CALLING A MAN A PIG “And yet,” mused Ravant, “I make you cry!” There was an unwonted softness in his voice. “I’m sorry I’m such a brute—I _am_ a good deal of a brute—ain’t I?” When she did not answer he shouted at her suddenly: “Ain’t I?” “Yes,” said the frightened nurse. “And I’m a pig, too. That’s what the doctor called me the other day when he left, didn’t he?” “Yes.” “I heard him. And he’s right, too—though not so bully as you, at saying it.” “The doctor is mistaken,” braved the girl. “I wouldn’t say it.” Ravant gasped and sat up in bed. “_What?_” The girl repeated, without fear, what she had said. And nothing had ever cowed Ravant as that did. It made him stop and think. It seemed as if he had never thought before—so primitive were his processes. “I’ll just live up to that girl’s estimate of me—and fool her. I really thought I was a pig. Heavens!” He laughed with himself as if he were some one else. “It didn’t even offend me! But I’m glad I’m not a pig—to her—and I’ll stop being a brute. Especially to women. What was it mother used to say?” Finally he remembered it: “Always be gentle to all women. For some of them are mothers, and all of them are daughters of mothers.”