“He won’t have me.  That’s why I came to you.”

“To me?”

“Yes.  I want you to tell him not to—­turn me away.”

Drusilla showed her bewilderment.  “But, surely nothing that I could say would have more weight with him than your own arguments.”

“You are his kind.  He’d listen.  Things that you say count with him.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Well, I’ve offended him.  And he won’t forgive me.  Not even for the sake of the work.  And I’m a good nurse, Miss Gray.  But he’s as hard as nails.  And—­and he sent me away.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Drusilla said gently.  Hilda was a dark figure of tragedy, as she sat there statuesquely in her blue cloak.

“You could make him see how foolish it is to refuse to have a good worker; men may die whom I could save.  He thinks that—­those things don’t mean anything to me, that I am arguing from a personal standpoint.  He wouldn’t think that of you.”

“I’ll do what I can, of course,” Drusilla said slowly.  She was not sure that she wanted to get into it, but she was sorry for Hilda.

“Won’t you have a cup of tea,” she said impulsively, “and take off your cloak?  I am afraid I haven’t seemed a bit hospitable.  I was so surprised.”

Hilda gave a little laugh.  “I’m not used to such courtesies—­so I didn’t miss it.  But I should like the tea, and something to eat with it.  I left Dr. McKenzie’s hospital early this morning, and I haven’t eaten since—­I didn’t want anything to eat—­”

She watched Drusilla curiously as she set forth the food.  “It must seem strange to you to live in a room like this.”

“I like it.”

“But you have always had such an easy life, Miss Gray.”

Drusilla smiled.  “It may have looked easy to you.  But I give you my word that keeping up with the social game is harder than this.”

“You say that,” Hilda told her crisply, “not because it’s true, but because it sounds true.  Do you mean to tell me that you like to be muddy and dirty and live in a place like this?”

“Yes, I like it.”  Something flamed in the back Of Drusilla’s eyes.  “I like it because it means something, and the other didn’t.”

“Well, I don’t like it,” Hilda stated.  “But nursing is all I am fit for.  I came over with a lot of other nurses, and they tell me at the hospital I am the best of the lot—­and in war times you can’t afford to miss the experience.  But then I am used to a hard life, and you are not.”

“Neither are the men in the trenches used to it.  That’s the standard I apply to myself—­for every hard thing I am doing, it is ten times harder for them.  I wish all the people at home could see how wonderful they are.”

“That’s Jean McKenzie’s word—­wonderful.  Everything was wonderful, and now she has married Derry Drake.”

“Yes, she has married Derry,” Drusilla stood staring into the little round stove.