“We are going to have trouble with it,” continued the fever nurse; “plenty of it before cool weather comes.  It’s almost epidemic.”

Lloyd held the minim-glass against the light, scrutinising it with narrowed lids.

“What did Esther say when she knew it was an infectious case?” she asked.  “Did she hesitate at all?”

“Not she!” declared Miss Douglass.  “She’s no Harriet Freeze.”

Lloyd did not answer.  This case of Harriet Freeze was one that the nurses of the house had never forgotten and would never forgive.  Miss Freeze, a young English woman, newly graduated, suddenly called upon to nurse a patient stricken with smallpox, had flinched and had been found wanting at the crucial moment, had discovered an excuse for leaving her post, having once accepted it.  It was cowardice in the presence of the Enemy.  Anything could have been forgiven but that.  On the girl’s return to the agency nothing was said, no action taken, but for all that she was none the less expelled dishonourably from the midst of her companions.  Nothing could have been stronger than the esprit de corps of this group of young women, whose lives were devoted to an unending battle with disease.

Lloyd continued the overhauling of her equipment, and began ruling forms for nourishment charts, while Miss Douglass importuned her to subscribe to a purse the nurses were making up for an old cripple dying of cancer.  Lloyd refused.

“You know very well, Miss Douglass, that I only give to charity through the association.”

“I know,” persisted the other, “and I know you give twice as much as all of us put together, but with this poor old fellow it’s different.  We know all about him, and every one of us in the house has given something.  You are the only one that won’t, Lloyd, and I had so hoped I could make it tip to fifty dollars.”

“No.”

“We need only three dollars now.  We can buy that little cigar stand for him for fifty dollars.”

“No.”

“And you won’t give us just three dollars?”

“No.”

“Well, you give half and I’ll give half,” said Miss Douglass.

“Do you think it’s a question of money with me?” Lloyd smiled.

Indeed this was a poor argument with which to move Lloyd—­Lloyd whose railroad stock alone brought her some fifteen thousand dollars a year.

“Well, no; I don’t mean that, of course, but, Lloyd, do let us have three dollars, and I can send word to the old chap this very afternoon.  It will make him happy for the rest of his life.”

“No—­no—­no, not three dollars, nor three cents.”

Miss Douglass made a gesture of despair.  She might have expected that she could not move Lloyd.  Once her mind was made up, one might argue with her till one’s breath failed.  She shook her head at Lloyd and exclaimed, but not ill-naturedly: 

“Obstinate!  Obstinate!  Obstinate!”