“_What_, sir?” gasped the White Linen Nurse. “_What_, sir?”
Softly, almost stealthily, she was half-way back across the room to him, when she stopped suddenly and threw out her arms with a gesture of appeal and defiance.
“All the same, sir,” she cried passionately--“all the same, sir, the place is too hard for the small pay I get. Oh, I will do what I promised,” she declared with increasing passion; “I will never leave you; and I will mother your little girl; and I will servant your big house; and I will go with you wherever you say! And I will be to you whatever you wish; and I will never flinch from any hardship you impose on me, nor whine over any pain, on and on and on, all my days, all my years, till I drop in my tracks again, and die, as you say, ‘still smiling’: all the same,” she reiterated wildly, “the place is too hard! It always was too hard, it always will be too hard, for such small pay!”
“For such small pay?” gasped the Senior Surgeon.
About his heart a horrid, clammy chill began to settle. Sickeningly through his brain a dozen recent financial transactions began to rehearse themselves.
“You mean, Miss Malgregor,” he said a bit brokenly--“you mean that I haven’t been generous enough with you?”
“Yes, sir,” faltered the White Linen Nurse. All the storm and passion died suddenly from her, leaving her just a frightened girl again, flushing pink-white before the Senior Surgeon’s scathing stare. One step, two steps, three, she advanced toward him. “Oh, I mean, sir,” she whispered--“oh, I mean, sir, that I’m just an ordinary, ignorant country girl, and you--are further above me than the moon from the sea! I couldn’t expect you to--love me, sir, I couldn’t even dream of your loving me; but I do think you might like me just a little bit with your heart!”
“What?” cried the Senior Surgeon. “What?”
_Whacketty-bang_ against the window-pane sounded the Little Crippled Girl’s knuckled fists. Darkly against the window-pane squashed the Little Crippled Girl’s staring face.
“Father,” screamed the shrill voice. “Father, there’s a white lady here, with two black ladies, washing the breakfast dishes! Is it Aunt Agnes?”
With a totally unexpected laugh, with a totally unexpected desire to laugh, the Senior Surgeon strode across the room and unlocked his door. Even then his lips against the White Linen Nurse’s ear made just a whisper, not a kiss.