Yet with a fragrant strawberry half as big as a peach held out suddenly under his nose, just from sheer, irresistible instinct he bit out at it--and nipped the White Linen Nurse's finger instead. "Ouch--sir!" said the White Linen Nurse. Mumblingly down from an upstairs window, as from a face flatted smouchingly against a wire screen, a peremptory summons issued. "Peach!--Peach!" called an angry little voice. "If you don't come to bed--now--I'll--I'll say my curses instead of my prayers!" A trifle nervously the White Linen Nurse scrambled to her feet. "Maybe I'd--better go?" she said. "Maybe--you had!" said the Senior Surgeon quite definitely. At the edge of the threshold the White Linen Nurse turned for an instant. "Good-night, Dr. Faber!" she whispered. "Good-night, Rae Malgregor--Faber!" said the Senior Surgeon. "Good-night--_what?_" gasped the White Linen Nurse. "Good-night, Rae Malgregor--Faber," repeated the Senior Surgeon. Clutching at her skirts as though a mouse were after her, the White Linen Nurse went scuttling up the stairs. Very late--on into the night--the Senior Surgeon lay there on his piazza floor staring out into his garden. Very companionably from time to time, like a tame firefly, a little bright spark hovered and glowed for an instant above the bowl of his pipe. Puff-puff-puff, doze-doze-doze, throb-throb-throb,--on and on and on and on--into the sweet-scented night. CHAPTER X So the days passed. And the nights. And more days. And more nights. July--August,--on and on and on. Strenuous, nerve-racking, heart-breaking surgical days--broken maritally only by the pleasant, soft-worded greeting at the gate, or the practical, homely appeal of good food cooked with heart as well as hands, or the tingling, inciting masculine consciousness of there being a woman's--blush in the house! Strenuous, house-working, child-nursing, home-making, domestic days--broken maritally only by the jaded, harsh word at the gate, the explosive criticism of food, the deadening, depressing, feminine consciousness of there being a man's--vicious temper in the house! Now and again in one big automobile or another the White Linen Nurse and the Senior Surgeon rode out together, always and forever with the Little Crippled Girl sitting between them,--the other woman's little crippled girl. Now and again in the late summer afternoons the White Linen Nurse and the Senior Surgeon strolled together through the rainbow-colored garden, always and forever with the Little Crippled Girl,--the other woman's little crippled girl, tagging close behind them with her little sad, clanking leg. Now and again in the long sweet summer evenings the White Linen Nurse and the Senior Surgeon sat on the clematis-shadowed porch together, always and forever with the Little Crippled Girl,--the other woman's little crippled girl, mocking them querulously from some vague upper window.