Part 64 (1/2)

Marcella laughed.

”Clever Benny,” she said, patting his head; ”but why aren't you at school, sir?”

Benjamin grinned.

”'Ow d'yer s'pose my ma's goin' to git along without me to do for 'er and the babby?” he replied slily.

”Well, Benny, you'll have the Board officer down on you.”

At this the urchin laughed out.

”Why, 'e wor here last week! Ee can't be troublin' 'isself about this 'ere bloomin' street _ev_ery day in the week.”

There was a sharp knock at the door.

”The doctor,” she said, as her face dismissed the frolic brightness which had stolen upon it for a moment. ”Run away, Benny.”

Benny opened the door, looked the doctor coolly up and down, and then withdrew to the landing, where his sisters were waiting to play with him.

The doctor, a tall man of thirty, with a red, blurred face and a fair moustache, walked in hurriedly, and stared at the nurse standing by the fire.

”You come from the St. Martin's a.s.sociation?”

Marcella stiffly replied. He took her temperature-chart from her hand and asked her some questions about the night, staring at her from time to time with eyes that displeased her. Presently she came to an account of the condition in which she had found her patient. The edge on the words, for all their professional quiet, was unmistakable. She saw him flush.

He moved towards the bed, and she went with him. The woman moaned as he approached her. He set about his business with hands that shook.

Marcella decided at once that he was not sober, and watched his proceedings with increasing disgust and amazement. Presently she could bear it no longer.

”I think,” she said, touching his arm, ”that you had better leave it to me--and--go away!”

He drew himself up with a start which sent the things he held flying, and faced her fiercely.

”What do you mean?” he said, ”don't you know your place?”

The girl was very white, but her eyes were scornfully steady.

”Yes--I know my place!”

Then with a composure as fearless as it was scathing she said what she had to say. She knew--and he could not deny--that he had endangered his patient's life. She pointed out that he was in a fair way to endanger it again. Every word she said lay absolutely within her sphere as a nurse.

His cloudy brain cleared under the stress of it.

Then his eyes flamed, his cheeks became purple, and Marcella thought for an instant he would have struck her. Finally he turned down his s.h.i.+rt-cuffs and walked away.

”You understand,” he said thickly, turning upon her, with his hat in his hand, ”that I shall not attend this case again till your a.s.sociation can send me a nurse that will do as she is told without insolence to the doctor. I shall now write a report to your superintendent.”

”As you please,” said Marcella, quietly. And she went to the door and opened it.

He pa.s.sed her sneering:

”A precious superior lot you lady-nurses think yourselves, I dare say.

I'd sooner have one old gamp than the whole boiling of you!”