The White Linen Nurse’s nostrils were smooth and calm with the lovely sappy scent of rabbit-nibbled maple bark and mud-wet arbutus buds.  The White Linen Nurse’s mind was full of sumptuous, succulent marsh marigolds, and fluffy white shad-bush blossoms.

The Senior Surgeon’s nostrils were all puckered up with the stench of burning varnish.  The Senior Surgeon’s mind was full of the horrid thought that he’d forgotten to renew his automobile fire-insurance,—­and that he had a sprained back,—­and that his rival colleague had told him he didn’t know how to run an auto anyway—­and that the cook had given notice that morning,—­and that he had a sprained back,—­and that the moths had gnawed the knees out of his new dress suit,—­and that the Superintendent of Nurses had had the audacity to send him a bunch of pink roses for his birthday,—­and that the boiler in the kitchen leaked,—­and that he had to go to Philadelphia the next day to read a paper on “Surgical Methods at the Battle of Waterloo,”—­and he hadn’t even begun the paper yet,—­and that he had a sprained back,—­and that the wall-paper on his library hung in shreds and tatters waiting for him to decide between a French fresco effect and an early English paneling,—­and that his little daughter was growing up in wanton ugliness under the care of coarse, indifferent hirelings,—­and that the laundry robbed him weekly of at least five socks,—­and that it would cost him fully seven thousand dollars to replace this car,—­and that he had a sprained back!

“It’s restful, isn’t it?” cooed the White Linen Nurse.

“Isn’t what restful?” glowered the Senior Surgeon.

“Sitting down!” said the White Linen Nurse.

Contemptuously the Senior Surgeon’s mind ignored the interruption and reverted precipitously to its own immediate problem concerning the gloomy, black-walnut shadowed entrance hall of his great house, and how many yards of imported linoleum at $3.45 a yard it would take to recarpet the “damned hole,”—­and how it would have seemed anyway if—­if he hadn’t gone home—­as usual to the horrid black-walnut shadows that night—­but been carried home instead—­feet first and—­quite dead—­dead, mind you, with a red necktie on,—­and even the cook was out!  And they wouldn’t even know where to lay him—­but might put him by mistake in that—­in that—­in his dead wife’s dead—­bed!

Altogether unconsciously a little fluttering sigh of ineffable contentment escaped the White Linen Nurse.

“I don’t care how long we have to sit here and wait for help,” she announced cheerfully, “because to-morrow, of course, I’ll have to get up and begin all over again—­and go to Nova Scotia.”

“Go where?” lurched the Senior Surgeon.

“I’d thank you kindly, sir, not to jerk my skirt quite so hard!” said the White Linen Nurse just a trifle stiffly.

Incredulously once more the Senior Surgeon withdrew his detaining hand.  “I’m not even touching your skirt!” he denied desperately.  Nothing but denial and reiterated denial seemed to ease his self-esteem for an instant.  “Why, for Heaven’s sake, should I want to hold on to your skirt?” he demanded peremptorily.  “What the deuce—?” he began blusteringly.  “Why in—?”