"None whatever, Max dear." She had looked at him with level, understanding
eyes.
He put the disagreeable recollection out of his mind as he parked his car
and made his way to his office. Here would be people who believed in him,
from the middle-aged nurse in her prim uniform to the row of patients
sitting stiffly around the walls of the waiting-room. Dr. Max, pausing in
the hall outside the door of his private office, drew a long breath. This
was the real thing--work and plenty of it, a chance to show the other men
what he could do, a battle to win! No humanitarian was he, but a fighter:
each day he came to his office with the same battle lust.
The office nurse had her back to him. When she turned, he faced an
agreeable surprise. Instead of Miss Simpson, he faced a young and
attractive girl, faintly familiar.
"We tried to get you by telephone," she explained. "I am from the
hospital. Miss Simpson's father died this morning, and she knew you would
have to have some one. I was just starting for my vacation, so they sent
me."
"Rather a poor substitute for a vacation," he commented.
She was a very pretty girl. He had seen her before in the hospital, but he
had never really noticed how attractive she was. Rather stunning she was,
he thought. The combination of yellow hair and dark eyes was unusual. He
remembered, just in time, to express regret at Miss Simpson's bereavement.
"I am Miss Harrison," explained the substitute, and held out his long white
coat. The ceremony, purely perfunctory with Miss Simpson on duty, proved
interesting, Miss Harrison, in spite of her high heels, being small and the
young surgeon tall. When he was finally in the coat, she was rather
flushed and palpitating.
"But I KNEW your name, of course," lied Dr. Max. "And--I'm sorry about the
vacation."
After that came work. Miss Harrison was nimble and alert, but the surgeon
worked quickly and with few words, was impatient when she could not find
the things he called for, even broke into restrained profanity now and
then. She went a little pale over her mistakes, but preserved her dignity
and her wits. Now and then he found her dark eyes fixed on him, with
something inscrutable but pleasing in their depths. The situation was:
rather piquant. Consciously he was thinking only of what he was doing.
Subconsciously his busy ego was finding solace after last night's rebuff.
Once, during the cleaning up between cases, he dropped to a personality.
He was drying his hands, while she placed freshly sterilized instruments on
a glass table.