“Why, of course, I understand,” said the Senior Surgeon briskly.  “You mean that you and John—­”

“His name was ‘Joe,’” corrected the White Linen Nurse.

With astonishing amiability the Senior Surgeon acknowledged the correction.  “You mean,” he said, “you mean that you and—­Joe—­have been cradled together so familiarly all your babyhood that on your wedding night you could most naturally have said ’Let me see—­Joe,—­it’s two pillows that you always have, isn’t it?  And a double-fold of blanket at the foot?’ You mean that you and Joe have been washed and scrubbed together so familiarly all your young childhood that you could identify Joe’s headless body twenty years hence by the kerosene-lamp scar across his back?  You mean that you and Joe have played house together so familiarly all your young tin-dish days that even your rag dolls called Joe ‘Father’?  You mean that since your earliest memory,—­until a year or so ago,—­Life has never once been just You and Life, but always You and Life and Joe?  You and Spring and Joe,—­You and Summer and Joe,—­You and Autumn and Joe,—­You and Winter and Joe,—­till every conscious nerve in your body has been so everlastingly Joed with Joe’s Joeness that you don’t believe there ’s any experience left in life powerful enough to eradicate that original impression?  Eh?”

“Yes, sir,” flushed the White Linen Nurse.

“Good!  I’m glad of it!” snapped the Senior Surgeon.  “It doesn’t make you seem quite so alarmingly innocent and remote for a widower to offer marriage to.  Good, I say!  I’m glad of it!”

“Even so—­I don’t want to,” said the White Linen Nurse.  “Thank you very much, sir!  But even so, I don’t want to.”

“Would you marry—­Joe—­now if he were suddenly free and wanted you?” asked the Senior Surgeon bluntly.

“Oh, my Lord, no!” said the White Linen Nurse.

“Other men are pretty sure to want you,” admonished the Senior Surgeon.  “Have you made up your mind—­definitely that you’ll never marry anybody?”

“N—­o, not exactly,” confessed the White Linen Nurse.

An odd flicker twitched across the Senior Surgeon’s face like a sob in the brain.

“What’s your first name, Miss Malgregor?” he asked a bit huskily.

“Rae,” she told him with some surprise.

The Senior Surgeon’s eyes narrowed suddenly again.

“Damn it all, Rae,” he said, “I—­want you!”

Precipitously the White Linen Nurse scrambled to her feet.  “If you don’t mind, sir,” she cried, “I’ll run down to the brook and get myself a drink of water!”

Impishly like a child, muscularly like a man, the Senior Surgeon clutched out at the flapping corner of her coat.

“No you don’t!” he laughed, “till you’ve given me my definite answer—­yes or no!”

Breathlessly the White Linen Nurse spun round in her tracks.  Her breast was heaving with ill-suppressed sobs.  Her eyes were blurred with tears.  “You’ve no business—­to hurry me so!” she protested passionately.  “It isn’t fair!—­It isn’t kind!”