Now Margaret MacLean knew well enough that he would never have discovered the prettiness of anything by himself--not in a century of springtimes, and she sensed the truth. "Did she decorate you?" she inquired, with an irritating little curl of her lips. The Senior Surgeon's self-confessed blush lent speed to her tongue. "I think I might be privileged to ask what it was for. You see, I presented the flowers to the board meeting. Was it for self-sacrifice?" Her eyes challenged his. "You are capable of talking more nonsense and being more impertinent than any nurse I have ever known. May I pass?" His eyes returned her challenge, blazing. But she never moved; the mind-string once broken, there seemed to be no limit to the thoughts that could come tumbling off the end of her tongue. Her eyes went back to the flower in his coat. "Perhaps you would like to know that I bought those this morning because they seemed the very breath of spring itself--a bit of promise and gladness. I thought they would keep the day going right." "Well, they have--for me." And the Senior Surgeon could not resist a look of triumph. "The trustees"--she drew in a quick breath and put out a steadying hand on the banisters--"you mean--they have given up the incurable ward?" He nodded. His voice took on a more genial tone. He felt he could generously afford to be pleasant and patient toward the one who had not succeeded. "It was something that was bound to happen sooner or later. Can't you see that yourself? But I am sorry, very sorry for you." Suddenly, and for the first time in their long sojourn together in Saint Margaret's, he became wholly conscious of the girl before him. He realized that Margaret MacLean had grown into a vital and vitalizing personality--a force with which those who came in contact would have to reckon. She stood before him now, frozen into a gray, accusing figure. "Are you ill?" he found himself asking. "No." He shifted his weight uneasily to the other foot. "Is there anything you want?" Her face softened into the little-girl look. Her eyes brimmed with a sadness past remedy. "What a funny question from you--you, who have taken from me the only thing I ever let myself want--the love and dependence of those children. Success, and having whatever you want, are such common things with you, that you must count them very cheap; but you can't judge what they mean to others--or what they may cost them." "As I said before, I am sorry, very sorry you have lost your position here; but you have no one but yourself to blame for that. I should have been very glad to have you remain in the new surgical ward; you are one of the best operative nurses I ever had." He added this in all justice to her; and to mitigate, if he could, his own feeling of discomfort. Margaret MacLean smiled grimly. "Thank you. I was not referring to the loss of my position, however; that matters very little."