Roddy said:
“She’d have hated it like hell—every minute of it!”
“I know.”
Roddy said:
“It’s marvellous the way you and I always see alike over things.”
Elinor said in a low voice:
“Yes it is.”
He said:
“We’re both feeling the same thing at this minute: just utter thankfulness that she’s out of it all….”
II
Nurse O’Brien said:
“What is it, Nurse? Can’t you find something?”
Nurse Hopkins, her face rather red, was hunting through the little attaché case that she had laid down in the hall the preceding evening.
She grunted:
“Most annoying. How I came to do such a thing I can’t imagine!”
“What is it?”
Nurse Hopkins replied not very intelligibly:
“It’s Eliza Rykin—that sarcoma, you know. She’s got to have double injections—night and morning—morphine. Gave her the last tablet in the old tube last night on my way here, and I could swear I had the new tube in here, too.”
“Look again. Those tubes are so small.”
Nurse Hopkins gave a final stir to the contents of the attaché case.
“No, it’s not here! I must have left it in my cupboard after all! Really, I did think I could trust my memory better than that. I could have sworn I took it out with me!”
“You didn’t leave the case anywhere, did you, on the way here?”
“Of course not!” said Nurse Hopkins sharply.
“Oh, well, dear,” said Nurse O’Brien, “it must be all right?”
“Oh, yes! The only place I’ve laid my case down was here in this hall, and nobody here would pinch anything! Just my memory, I suppose. But it vexes me, if you understand, Nurse. Besides, I shall have to go right home first to the other end of the village and back again.”
Nurse O’Brien said:
“Hope you won’t have too tiring a day, dear, after last night. Poor old lady. I didn’t think she would last long.”
“No, nor I. I daresay Doctor will be surprised!”
Nurse O’Brien said with a tinge of disapproval:
“He’s always so hopeful about his cases.”