Nurse in White Read Free Page B

gentle as a mother when you massage that same Old Phlebitis and dutifully attentive to Mrs. Vitriol, as you call her, down in the Women’s Surgical. You can’t fool me anymore, Ann Murdock. It’s only your shell that’s hard. Inside you’re as soft as—as putty. And I’m not sanctimonious, Ann. I may have been once but not anymore, and in spite of anything you may say to the contrary, I still think nursing is the noblest profession in the world, except, perhaps, medicine or surgery, and I’m proud I belong.”
    Ann gave her a quick hug. “You’re a grand kid, Ellen, and I’m just a black ewe, but I love you just the same. S’long, precious—see you at dinner—perhaps.”
    Overnight, it seemed, the personnel of Anthony Ware had changed. Cyrus Dent, fresh from a year in Bellevue, tall, athletic, blond as a young god, swaggered—the term was Ellen’s, who suddenly and for no reason she could explain heartily disliked him—through the corridors, turning the heads of the susceptible younger nurses and raising the temperatures of many a female patient. Just as if Fielding, funny, redheaded Bob Fielding, wasn’t menace enough for one season!
    Ann quickly let it be known that the policy of “hands off’ still prevailed. Bob immediately fell under her spell and ever after remained fraternally loyal to his fellow redhead. Cy wasn’t interested for a time and Ann, who refused to acknowledge defeat where any man was concerned, persisted in her subtle wooing. Wasn’t he an old acquaintance? She remembered him now—back when they were both still half-baked. Bets were laid with the odds on Ann. It wasn’t long until the house knew that she was meeting Cy two blocks around the corner, where his car was parked.
    Dr. Dent’s attitude toward Ellen was one of amused condescension and that young lady found herself trembling with rage at the gleam of mirth in his eyes as he paused to watch her gently bathing the face of some crusty old codger or attempting to soothe an irritable harridan. She tried ignoring his presence but he would somehow manage to get in her way. She became coolly polite and formal only to have him laugh mockingly. She even took a leaf from his own and Ann’s book—tried being flippant and answered his jibes in kind.
    “You’re out of character, Nightingale,” he would chide. “You are much better in the title role.”
    And Ellen, fighting tears of rage and humiliation that she had let him know that he could upset her, would flee before his amused chuckles. Then it was that Ellen wished she were more like other girls—less devoted to a cause, less old-fashioned, naive and sincere. She would beat her hands together in impotent rage. If only she could hurt him in some way! If only she had some weapon that would wipe that hateful smirk from his classic mouth and bow that blond head low! She felt powerless to combat him and despised herself for her lack of self-control, she who had been so aloof—so impervious to everything male.
    Suddenly, he began appearing around midnight when she was on night duty, with uncanny skill choosing a time when she was alone or managing to find an errand for the girl on duty with her so that the meeting had all the appearance of a rendezvous. She could not make a complaint—it was all so trivial and childish. Perhaps he would grow tired of heckling her and turn to someone else. She had only to keep a stiff upper lip and refuse to let him know he annoyed her. The old formula she had used as a child failed her here. Then, she would say over and over again,
    “They can’t hurt me—no one can hurt me—I refuse to be hurt.” Now it had no potency. Cyrus Dent did hurt her—hurt her pride and her dignity.
    She fancied the other girls eyed her with amusement and no little envy and she felt once or twice that even the house physician looked disapprovingly at her. But what could she do? Ann apparently saw nothing amiss, and went on her way as if young Dent were already her