"I've seen Enriquez," he told the doctor, "but he won't promise to send me through. He says the Junta is besieged by fellows who want to fight for Cuba--and of course I don't. When I appealed in Rosa's name he told me, truthfully enough, I dare say, that there are thousands of Cuban women as badly in need of succor as she. He says this is no time for private considerations." "Quite so!" the doctor agreed. "We hear frightful stories about this new concentration policy. I--can't believe them." "Oh, I guess they are true; it is the more reason why I must get back at once," O'Reilly said, earnestly. "This lady who is coming here to-night has influence with Enriquez. You remember I told you that she has contributed liberally. She might help you." "I'll implore her to put in a word for me. Who is she?" "Well, she's my pet nurse--" "A nurse!" O'Reilly's eyes opened wide. "A nurse, with MONEY! I didn't know there was such a thing." "Neither did I. They're rarer even than rich doctors," Alvarado acknowledged. "But, you see, nursing is merely Miss Evans's avocation. She's one of the few wealthy women I know who have real ideals, and live up to them." "Oh, she has a 'mission'!" Johnnie's interest in Doctor Alvarado's other guest suddenly fell away, and his tone indicated as much. As the doctor was about to reply the ringing of the door-bell summoned him away. O'Reilly had met women with ideals, with purposes, with avocations, and his opinion of them was low. Women who had "missions" were always tiresome, he had discovered. This one, it appeared, was unusual only in that she had adopted a particularly exacting form of charitable work. Nursing, even as a rich woman's diversion, must be anything but agreeable. O'Reilly pictured this Evans person in his mind--a large, plain, elderly creature, obsessed with impractical ideas of uplifting the masses! She would undoubtedly bore him stiff with stories of her work: she would reproach him with neglect of his duties to the suffering. Johnnie was too poor to be charitable and too deeply engrossed at the moment with his own troubles to care anything whatever about the "masses." And she was a "miss." That meant that she wore thick glasses and probably kept cats.