At eleven o'clock she came again,--just as pink,--just as blue,--just as
gray,--just as golden. And the cup of malted milk she brought with her
was just as huge,--just as hot,--just as steaming,--only this time she
had smuggled two raw eggs into it.
Once more the Senior Surgeon took the cup without comment and shut the
door in her face.
At twelve o'clock she came again. The Senior Surgeon was unusually
loquacious this time.
"Have you any more malted milk?" he asked tersely.
"Oh, yes, sir!" beamed the White Linen Nurse.
"Go and get it!" said the Senior Surgeon.
Obediently the White Linen Nurse pattered up the stairs and returned
with the half depleted bottle. Frankly interested she recrossed the
threshold of the room and delivered her glass treasure into the hands of
the Senior Surgeon as he stood by his desk. Raising herself to her
tiptoes she noted with eminent satisfaction that the three big cups on
the other side of the desk had all been drained to their dregs.
Then very bluntly before her eyes the Senior Surgeon took the malted
milk bottle and poured its remaining contents out quite wantonly into
his waste basket. Then equally bluntly he took the White Linen Nurse by
the shoulders and marched her out of the room.
"For God's sake!" he said, "get out of this room! And stay out!"
_Bang_! the big door slammed behind her. Like a snarling fang the lock
bit into its catch.
"Yes, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. Even just to herself--all alone
there in the big black hall, she was perfectly polite. "Y-e-s, sir," she
repeated softly.
With a slightly sardonic grin on his face the Senior Surgeon resumed his
pacing. Up and down,--round and round,--on and on and on!
At one o'clock in the dull, clammy chill of earliest morning he stopped
long enough to light his hearthfire.
At two o'clock he stopped again to pile on a trifle more wood.
At three o'clock he dallied for an instant to close a window. The new
day seemed strangely cold.
At four o'clock, dawn the wonder,--the miracle,--the long despaired
of,--quickened wanly across the East. Then suddenly,--more like a
phosphorescent breeze than a glow, the pale, pale yellow sunshine came
wafting through the green gloom of the garden. The vigil was over!
Stumbling out into the shadowy hall to greet the new day and the new
beginning, the Senior Surgeon almost tripped and fell over the White
Linen Nurse sitting all huddled up and drowsy-eyed in a little gray heap
on his outer threshold. The sensation of stepping upon a human body is
not a pleasant one. It smote the Senior Surgeon nauseously through the
nerves of his stomach.
"What are you doing here?" he fairly screamed at her.
"Just keeping you company, sir," yawned the White Linen Nurse. Before
her hand could reach her mouth again another great childish yawn
overwhelmed her. "Just--watching with you, sir," she finished more or
less inarticulately.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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