“You mean, Miss Malgregor,” he said a bit brokenly.  “You mean—­that I—­haven’t been generous enough with you?”

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

All the storm and passion died suddenly from her, leaving her just a frightened girl again, flushing pink-white, pink-white, pink-white, before the Senior Surgeon’s scathing stare.  One step, two steps, three, she advanced towards him.

“Oh, I mean, sir,” she whispered, “oh, I mean, sir,—­that I’m just an ordinary, ignorant country girl and you—­are further above me than the moon from the sea!  I couldn’t expect you to—­love me, sir!  I couldn’t even dream of your loving me! But I do think you might like me just a little bit with your heart!”

“What?” flushed the Senior Surgeon. “What?”

Whacketty-bang against the window pane sounded the Little Crippled Girl’s knuckled fists!  Darkly against the window pane squashed the Little Crippled Girl’s staring face.

“Father!” screamed the shrill voice.  “Father!  There’s a white lady here with two black ladies washing the breakfast dishes!  Is it Aunt Agnes?”

With a totally unexpected laugh, with a totally unexpected desire to laugh, the Senior Surgeon strode across the room and unlocked his door.  Even then his lips against the White Linen Nurse’s ear made just a whisper, not a kiss.

“God bless you!—­hurry!” he said.  “And let’s get out of here before any telephone message catches me!”

Then almost calmly he walked out on the piazza, and greeted his sister-in-law.

“Hello, Agnes!” he said.

“Hello, yourself!” smiled his sister-in-law.

“How’s everything?” he enquired politely.

“How’s everything with you?” parried his sister-in-law.

Idly for a few moments the Senior Surgeon threw out stray crumbs of thought to feed the conversation, while smilingly all the while from her luxuriant East Indian chair his sister-in-law sat studying the general situation.  The Senior Surgeon’s sister-in-law was always studying something.  Last year it was archaeology,—­the year before, basketry,—­this year it happened to be eugenics, or something funny like that,—­next year again it might be book-binding.

“So you and your pink and white shepherdess are going off on a little trip together?” she queried banteringly.  “The girl’s a darling, Lendicott!  I haven’t had as much sport in a long time as I had that afternoon last June when I came in my best calling-clothes and—­helped her paint the kitchen woodwork!  And I had come prepared to be a bit nasty, Lendicott!  In all honesty, Lendicott, I might just as well ’fess up that I had come prepared to be just a little bit nasty!”

“She seems to have a way,” smiled the Senior Surgeon, “she seems to have a way of disarming people’s unpleasant intentions.”