“I presume you can find a waste-basket down in the office if you want to get rid of them,” said Bonnie, suddenly, in a clear, refined voice.  “I really shouldn’t care for them.  Isn’t there a waste-basket somewhere about?” she asked, turning toward the nurse.

“Down in the hall by the front entrance,” answered the nurse, grimly.  She was ready to play up to whatever cue Bonnie gave her.

Gila stood haughtily holding her flowers and looking from one woman to the other, unable to believe that any other woman had the insufferable audacity to meet her on her own ground in this way.  Were they actually guying her, or were they innocents who really thought she did not want the flowers, or who did not know enough to think orchids beautiful?  Before she could decide Bonnie was speaking again, still in that quiet, superior tone of a lady that gave her the command of the situation: 

“I am sorry,” she said, quite politely, as if she must let her visitor down gently, “but I’m afraid you have made some mistake.  I don’t recall ever having met you before.  It must be some other Miss Brentwood for whom you are looking.”

Gila stared, and her color suddenly began to rise even under the pearly tint of her flesh.  Had she possibly made some blunder?  This certainly was the voice of a lady.  And the girl on the bed had the advantage of absolute self-control.  Somehow that angered Gila more than anything else.

“Don’t you know Paul Courtland?” she demanded, imperiously.

“I never heard the name before!”

Bonnie’s voice was steady, and her eyes looked coolly into the other girl’s.  The nurse looked at Bonnie and marveled.  She knew the name of Paul Courtland well; she telephoned to that name every day.  How was it that the girl did not know it?  She liked this girl and the man who had brought her here and been so anxious about her.  But who on earth was this huzzy in fur?

Gila looked at Bonnie madly.  Her stare said as plainly as words could have done:  “You lie!  You do know him!” But Gila’s lips said, scornfully, “Aren’t you the poor girl whose kid brother got killed by an automobile in the street?”

Across Bonnie’s stricken face there flashed a spasm of pain and her very lips grew white.

“I thought so!” sneered Gila, rushing on with her insult.  “And yet you deny that you ever heard Paul Courtland’s name!  He picked up the kid and carried it in the house and ran errands for you, but you don’t know him!  That’s gratitude for you!  I told him the working-class were all like that.  I have no doubt he has paid for this very room that you are lying in!”

“Stop!” cried Bonnie, sitting up, her eyes like two stars, her face white to the very lips.  “You have no right to come here and talk like that!  I cannot understand who could have sent you!  Certainly not the courteous stranger who picked up my little brother.  I do not know his name, nor anything about him, but I can assure you that I shall not allow him nor any one else to pay my bills.  Now will you take your things and leave my room?  I am feeling very—­tired!”