"Make it as natural as possible, Ethridge. Have your father and Mattus look at her."
When they had risen Princeton Peters' eyes had purpled and he asked reverently:
Cub Sterling, who was standing in the doorway, turned as though someone had slapped him upon the back. His left shoulder was high.
"Miss Kexter," Miss Kerr still bore her rump and bust inflated, "this is the new patient for Ward B."
Beside her stood Rose Standish. She wore a plain blue coat suit and a small black hat pulled down to her gray eyes.
Miss Kexter turned from Miss Kerr and looked at her.
"Hullo, Miss Standish," she said. "You sick?" and reached for the small suitcase.
"Hope not ... much," Miss Standish's ivory face was somber. "Dr. Sterling thinks I may have a bum lung. In for observation."
They walked into the ward and Miss Kerr observed, "Two vacant beds. Oh, yes, that patient in 21 went home, didn't she? Put Miss Standish in that bed."
Miss Standish looked upset. Trained nurses haven't much use for a member of their profession who has the chicken-heartedness to succumb to physical ailments. And Miss Kerr's manner plainly said so. But Rose Standish had not been head nurse in the accident room three years without being able to think quickly.
"Oh, please, Miss Kerr, mayn't I be put in that vacant bed over there, by the window?"
Miss Kerr, who had suspected something from the first and thought that the vacant bed she had forgotten had forestalled Dr. Sterling's plans, snapped:
"Certainly not. Any patient with a suspected lung should not be near a window ... and a nurse ought to know better than to want to be."
The patients, who were too sick to be wheeled out upon the porch, looked on with interest. Mrs. Witherspoon, who spent most of her waking hours with her bed curtains drawn and upon a bed-pan, peeked out from between the curtains. She leaned too far, and then exclaimed:
Miss Kexter vanished behind the curtains and Miss Kerr stood stiffly looking out of the window, and Miss Standish placed her suitcase upon the assigned bed and prepared to open it, but footsteps ... male footsteps ... were coming up the corridor, so she hesitated. Dr. Mattus spoke before he was in the ward. In fact he began speaking when he saw Miss Standish standing by the bed.