Then the Senior Surgeon gave a great gasp of relief and announced resonantly, “Well, it’s all settled then?  We’ll be married some time in July,—­after I get home from Canada?” And when the White Linen Nurse kept on smiling perfectly amiably and said, “Oh, no, sir!  Oh, no, thank you, sir!  It wouldn’t seem exactly legal to me to be married any other month but June!” Then the Senior Surgeon went absolutely dumb with rage that this mere chit of a girl,—­and a trained nurse, too,—­should dare to thwart his personal and professional convenience.  But the White Linen Nurse just drooped her pretty blonde head and blushed and blushed and blushed and said, “I was only marrying you, sir, to—­accommodate you—­sir,—­and if June doesn’t accommodate you—­I’d rather go to Japan with that monoideic somnambulism case.  It’s very interesting.  And it sails June second.”  Then “Oh, Hell with the ’monoideic somnambulism case’!” the Senior Surgeon would protest.

Really it took the Senior Surgeon quite a long while to work out the three special arguments that should best protect him, he thought, from the horridly embarrassing idea of being married in June.

“But you can’t get ready so soon!” he suggested at last with real triumph.  “You’ve no idea how long it takes a girl to get ready to be married!  There are so many people she has to tell,—­and everything!”

“There’s never but two that she’s got to tell—­or bust!” conceded the White Linen Nurse with perfect candor.  “Just the woman she loves the most—­and the woman she hates the worst.  I’ll write my mother to-morrow.  But I told the Superintendent of Nurses yesterday.”

“The deuce you did!” snapped the Senior Surgeon.

Almost caressingly the White Linen Nurse lifted her big blue eyes to his.  “Yes, sir,” she said, “and she looked as sick as a young undertaker.  I can’t imagine what ailed her.”

“Eh?” choked the Senior Surgeon.  “But the house now,” he hastened to contend.  “The house now needs a lot of fixing over!  It’s all run down!  It’s all—­everything!  We never in the world could get it into shape by the first of June!  For Heaven’s sake, now that we’ve got money enough to make it right, let’s go slow and make it perfectly right!”

A little nervously the White Linen Nurse began to fumble through the pages of her memorandum book.  “I’ve always had money enough to ’go slow and make things perfectly right,’” she confided a bit wistfully.  “Never in all my life have I had a pair of boots that weren’t guaranteed, or a dress that wouldn’t wash, or a hat that wasn’t worth at least three re-pressings.  What I was hoping for now, sir, was that I was going to have enough money so that I could go fast and make things wrong if I wanted to,—­so that I could afford to take chances, I mean.  Here’s this wall-paper now,”—­tragically she pointed to some figuring in her note-book—­“it’s got peacocks on it—­life size—­in a queen’s garden—­and I wanted it for the dining-room.  Maybe it would fade!  Maybe we’d get tired of it!  Maybe it would poison us!  Slam it on one week—­and slash it off the next!  I wanted it just because I wanted it, sir!  I thought maybe—­while you were way off in Canada—­”