Dear Tiberius; (aka Nurse Nolan) Read Free Page A

went to her after her own breakfast, had not seen her father. She had been fed and washed by Fiske, who was secretly only happy when she was doing things for the invalid, and a queer look invaded her overbright blue eyes when she learned that Sir John was back.
    “ Oh! ” she said, looking at Nurse Nolan with her head on one side, a birdlike habit she had formed. “ Then I ’ ll be seeing him, won ’ t I? ”
    “ I expect so, darling, ” Lucy replied. “ He ’ s bound to want to have a chat with you. ”
    It seemed unnatural to her that a father, after an absence from home of a whole month, should not have gone hastening to his daughter at the very earliest opportunity, but she knew that would have been quite unlike Sir John.
    She purposely kept rather out of the way that day in case Sir John should wish to have a talk alone with his daughter, and she saw nothing of him herself until evening. Then, when she was thinking of making some alteration to her dress in preparation for having dinner alone in her own sitting room, the summons she had been expecting came. “ Sir John would like to see you in the library. Nurse Nolan! ” It was Purvis who tapped quietly at her door, and who conveyed the summons to her.
    “ Oh, very well, Purvis. I ’ ll go down immediately. ”
    She glanced at herself hastily in her mirror to make sure that her cap was at nothing suggestive of a flighty angle on her hair and that there was no shine on her nose. A quick flick with a powder puff dealt with the nose, and a face tissue pressed against her soft, full lips removed most of the traces of lipstick. In the hospital there had been a rule against lipstick that clung to her still whilst on duty, and although she felt naked without it, she used it very sparingly except when she was going out and away from her patient.
    The library was in a remote wing of the house that also contained Sir John ’ s private apartments, and save when he was at home, the corridor leading to it was very dimly illuminated. Tonight, as he was at home, there seemed to be a positive blaze of illumination to guide Lucy ’ s footsteps over the rich, thick, crimson carpet, and when she reached the library door and tapped on it she felt as if the harshness of the lights had taken all the color out of her face.
    Sir John ’ s voice called to her almost immediately to enter, and she turned the handle of the stout oak door noiselessly, and then found herself on the fringe of a vast room wherein a fire burned pleasantly on the wide hearth, for the September evenings were cool.
    In front of the fire, on a thick skin rug, was Muffin, Sir John ’ s spaniel, with a curly black-satin coat, and large golden eyes that never left Sir John ’ s face when he was at home. Whether Sir John ever made a fuss of the dog Lucy had sometimes wondered, for she had never seen him do so, although its devotion to him was obvious, but he seemed to accept it as natural that it should behave like his shadow when he was at Ketterings. Tonight it lay with its nose on its paws, and its paws almost on the instep of one of his shoes as he stood beside it on the rug.
    “ Ah, good evening. Nurse Nolan! ” he greeted her, in the s trangely quiet voice she remembered.

 
     

CHAPTER THREE
    He moved forward a t once to place a chair for her, and as she accepted it Nurse Nolan managed to absorb a few little things about him that were also very much as she remembered them—his weakness for immaculate linen, and the quiet skill of his tailor. His dark gray suit fitted him to perfection, and nothing could have been more correct and formal than the way his tie was knotted. As he lifted his wrist to glance at his wristwatch and compare it with the face of the clock on the mantelpiece, she noted how lean and virile it was, and noted the suggestion of strength in the long-fingered, well-cared-for hand attached to it.
    “ You didn ’ t waste very much time. Nurse Nolan, ” he remarked, something that