Nurse O’Brien said romantically:
“Maybe they were boy and girl together and a cruel father separated them….”
Nurse Hopkins said with a deep sigh:
“Perhaps he was killed in the war….”
III
When Nurse Hopkins, pleasantly stimulated by tea and romantic speculation, finally left the house, Mary Gerrard ran out of the door to overtake her.
“Oh, Nurse, may I walk down to the village with you?”
“Of course you can, Mary, my dear.”
Mary Gerrard said breathlessly:
“I must talk to you. I’m so worried about everything.”
The older woman looked at her kindly.
At twenty-one, Mary Gerrard was a lovely creature with a kind of wild-rose unreality about her: a long delicate neck, pale golden hair lying close to her exquisitely shaped head in soft natural waves, and eyes of a deep vivid blue.
Nurse Hopkins said:
“What’s the trouble?”
“The trouble is that the time is going on and on and I’m not doing anything!”
Nurse Hopkins said drily:
“Time enough for that.”
“No, but it is so—so unsettling. Mrs. Welman has been wonderfully kind, giving me all that expensive schooling. I do feel now t
hat I ought to be starting to earn my own living. I ought to be training for something.”
Nurse Hopkins nodded sympathetically.
“It’s such a waste of everything if I don’t. I’ve tried to—to explain what I feel to Mrs. Welman, but—it’s difficult—she doesn’t seem to understand. She keeps saying there’s plenty of time.”
Nurse Hopkins said:
“She’s a sick woman, remember.”
Mary flushed a contrite flush.
“Oh, I know. I suppose I oughtn’t to bother her. But it is worrying—and Father’s so—so beastly about it! Keeps jibing at me for being a fine lady! But indeed I don’t want to sit about doing nothing!”
“I know you don’t.”
“The trouble is that training of any kind is nearly always expensive. I know German pretty well now, and I might do something with that. But I think really I want to be a hospital nurse. I do like nursing and sick people.”
Nurse Hopkins said unromantically:
“You’ve got to be as strong as a horse, remember!”
“I am strong! And I really do like nursing. Mother’s sister, the one in New Zealand, was a nurse. So it’s in my blood, you see.”