that anybody is trying to hold you personally responsible for the existence of death in the world.  Bah!” he ejaculated fiercely.  “If you are going to fuss like this over cases hopelessly moribund from the start, what in thunder are you going to do some fine day when out of a perfectly clear and clean sky Security itself turns septic and you lose the President of the United States—­or a mother of nine children—­with a hang-nail?”

“But I wasn’t fussing, sir!” protested Rae Malgregor with a timid sort of dignity.  “Why, it never had occurred to me for a moment that anybody blamed me for—­anything!” Just from sheer astonishment her hands took a new clutch into the torn flapping corner of the motto that she still clung desperately to even at this moment.

“For Heaven’s sake stop crackling that brown paper!” stormed the Senior Surgeon.

“But I wasn’t crackling the brown paper, sir!  It’s crackling itself,” persisted Rae Malgregor very softly.  The great blue eyes that lifted to his were brimming full of misery.  “Oh, can’t I make you understand, sir?” she stammered.  Appealingly she turned to the Superintendent.  “Oh, can’t I make anybody understand?  All I was trying to say,—­all I was trying to explain, was—­that I don’t want to be a trained nurse—­after all!”

“Why not?” demanded the Senior Surgeon with a rather noisy click of his glove fasteners.

“Because—­my—­face—­is—­tired,” said the girl quite simply.

The explosive wrath on the Senior Surgeon’s countenance seemed to be directed suddenly at the Superintendent.

“Is this an afternoon tea?” he asked tartly.  “With six major operations this morning and a probable meningitis diagnosis ahead of me this afternoon I think I might be spared the babblings of an hysterical nurse!” Casually over his shoulder he nodded at the girl.  “You’re a fool!” he said, and started for the door.

Just on the threshold he turned abruptly and looked back.  His forehead was furrowed like a corduroy road and the one rampant question in his mind at the moment seemed to be mired hopelessly between his bushy eyebrows.

“Lord!” he exclaimed a bit flounderingly.  “Are you the nurse that helped me last week on that fractured skull?”

“Yes, sir,” said Rae Malgregor.

Jerkily the Senior Surgeon retraced his footsteps into the office and stood facing her as though with some really terrible accusation.

“And the freak abdominal?” he quizzed sharply.  “Was it you who threaded that needle for me so blamed slowly—­and calmly—­and surely, while all the rest of us were jumping up and down and cursing you—­for no brighter reason than that we couldn’t have threaded it ourselves if we’d had all eternity before us and—­all creation bleeding to death?”

“Y-e-s, sir,” said Rae Malgregor.

Quite bluntly the Senior Surgeon reached out and lifted one of her hands to his scowling professional scrutiny.