The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, September, 1913: Vol. LXXXVI, No. 5Various
General
The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, September, 1913: Vol. LXXXVI, No. 5
Various
Periodicals
“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.”
“You’re an idiot!” snapped the Senior Surgeon.
A little reproachfully the White Linen Nurse came frowning out of her
reverie.
“Would it do just as well for traveling, do you think?” she asked, with
real concern.
“Eh? What?” said the Senior Surgeon.
“I mean, does Japan _spot_?” queried the White Linen Nurse. “Would it
spot a serge, I mean?”
“Oh, hell with Japan!” jerked out the Senior Surgeon.
“Yes, sir,” said the White Linen Nurse.
Now, perhaps you will understand just exactly how it happened that the
Senior Surgeon and the White Linen Nurse _were_ married on the first
day of June, and just exactly how it happened that the Senior Surgeon
went off alone as usual on his Canadian trip, and just exactly how
it happened that the White Linen Nurse came home alone to the Senior
Surgeon’s great, gloomy house, to find her brand-new stepdaughter still
screaming over the turquoise-colored stockings. Everything now is
perfectly comfortably explained except the turquoise-colored stockings.
Nobody could explain the turquoise-colored stockings.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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