Nurse in Love Read Online Free PDF Page B

so if you won’t be bored, Kathryn dear, I’d planned just a quiet day for us both?”
    “You know I’d like it more than anything,” Kathryn protested. “One of the things I’m most grateful for in being able to come here to you and Victor is that I need do nothing by the clock, whereas in hospital my day is positively ordered by it.”
    Barbara glanced at her a little critically. “You look tired, Kathryn, I think.”
    “Not tired ”
    “Worried, then? Some difficult cases—or oughtn’t I to ask?”
    “No, nothing in particular, I think.” Momentarily she was tempted to confide in Barbara, but she decided against it, mentally squaring her shoulders against yesterday’s unpleasant memory. For what, really, did it amount to? A personal clash between herself and Adam Brand, but one which certainly could not be allowed to affect the team-work of the Sister of the children’s ward and its specialist. And since that point of contact was likely to be the only one between them, what was there to worry about, after all?
    Helped by the pleasant serenity about her, her spirits had lightened considerably by the time she and Barbara went to meet Carol, who flung herself dangerously down the bus steps and into Barbara’s arms.
    Then she shook hands with Kathryn, demanding with a fascinating gap-toothed smile: “When is Sara coming again?” and: “Did you see Edward in bed? How did you think he was?”
    Kathryn considered the question gravely. “Not quite himself, perhaps. A little pale — ”
    “Could be. The other day we gave him a dry shampoo with fuller’s earth, after which he was considerably paler than before!” put in Barbara with amusement. “What did you do at school to-day, darling?”
    Carol gave thought to her morning’s activities. “We sang,” she submitted at last. “And I made a mat.” The mat, duly produced, was a four-inch square of coarse rug-canvas laboriously cross-stitched in wool.
    “It’s for Sara,” explained Carol hastily, lest there should be competition for its possession.
    Naturally no one laid claim to it, and it went, with Sara’s chocolate, to join a strange assortment of treasures at Carol’s bedside when she went to rest. The other two adjourned to the sitting-room for a lazy afternoon; Kathryn amused Barbara with a spirited account of Sara’s losing battle for full employment on Sister Bridgeworth’s ward, and then they talked desultorily of other things until after a pause Barbara said thoughtfully:
    “Kathryn, I’ve been wondering—have you ever had reason to think that you had made an enemy of Thelma Carter?”
    “Of Thelma?” Kathryn’s brow puckered as she sought for time in which to answer the question.
    “Yes. We were both at the same tea-party yesterday . Incidentally, how is it that she can always manage to attend any social function whatsoever? You have told me, but I forget. Doesn’t she have regular duty hours at the hospital like you?”
    “I think not. You see, she only helps with some clerical work in the Social Worker’s office, and it is not very exacting, I gather. And she has always let it be supposed that as she and Steven had money of their own she doesn’t really need to work. But what did you mean, Barbara?”
    “Well, she was talking yesterday—not directly to me and not in the slightest confidence—about Steven and his Nigerian appointment, saying that it was no wonder he’d succumbed to the climate since, through no fault of his own, when he went out his whole mental and physical resistance had been sapped. He had no reserves, she said, with which to combat anything he might have to face. She paused there to allow that to sink in, and when someone had asked her what she meant, she said that a girl he had been in love with had encouraged him almost to the point of marriage and then thrown him over at the last minute. And then, with an air of challenge, she asked if anyone could blame a sensitive man like Steven for allowin g it