She wondered if the nurse would ever leave them alone, as the starchy presence of this very professional young lady reduced the possibilities of life to the headings on a series of miraculously perfect charts, making everything else in the world seem contemptibly behind the times or dangerously septic.
On her fourth visit Virginia was greeted by a pleasant surprise. Dressed and clean shaven, Jack lay stretched on a lounge, well propped up with pillows. His face looked more natural, and in his eyes there lurked a gleam of human fractiousness.
In a weak but decided voice he directed the nurse: "Thank you. Miss Arnold, that is all. If you will kindly put a chair here for Miss Dryden, you can go off and write your letters." Then, pleadingly to Virginia, "The doctor said you might stay an hour to-day, but, of course, you can't spare all that time."
"An hour!" said Virginia cheerfully. "That's not too long for me, I've nothing in the world to do."
The nurse left with the manner of a person whose judgment is being disregarded, and Jack drew a long breath of relief. "Letters are that girl's only human weakness. I hope she gets a good mail to-day." Then, with an air of confidential intimacy, "Take off your gloves and veil. Miss Dryden, please, and look friendly. Good Lord! You'll never know the trouble I've had getting round that slave-driver and Henrietta. The doctor is white, he really understands, but they tell him I'm flighty just because I want a little human society and find theirs bad for my health. To-day I struck,—struck on milk, struck on beef-juice, boycotted all doses and stimulants, as they call them. When Dr. Dawson came I put the thing before him square, got what I wanted, and called the strike off. They wanted me to keep that filthy beard."
"You behaved like a naughty sick baby." The severity of this was quite neutralized by the caressing gentleness of Virginia's voice. "Wouldn't you like me to read aloud? I don't suppose you ought to talk much."
"Read! That is one of my troubles. Miss Arnold would read aloud, with expression too!—ugh! the most awful books. Now I make her plough through the sporting-page of the paper every day, and she's not so keen about it."
Virginia remembered her duties to constituted society and shook a disapproving head. "Not very nice of you. Jack. They've pulled you through a pretty stiff turn."
"Oh, don't you scold. Miss Dryden, please. I'd be all right with another kind of nurse. A fellow I know had one last year and she was awfully decent. This female has been at the head of some big circus and is accustomed to bossing a hundred or so people; now she
