Miss Burton has asked me so many questions in the last few hours that if she had not gone just when she did there would have been another outburst. And did Madame Castaigne tell you that she scolded me as if I had been about six years old and without the least regard for my being a First Lieutenant, with a fair chance[135] of a captaincy, until this blasted accident? She assured me that if I was not more considerate of the nurses—well, I suppose I was not to be allowed to have one, I was not quite certain what my punishment was to be. But that same Miss Burton seems to have shed tears over something she thinks I said to her. But I am sure I have never been inconsiderate, although I don’t like Miss Burton. She gives me the creeps; for one thing, she won’t fight back. I have never been disagreeable to you, Miss Davis.”

[135]

Nona laughed. “How are the mighty fallen!” she thought a trifle wickedly to herself. But aloud she answered. “Oh, not especially; besides, I don’t pay any attention to what men say when they are ill. They are scarcely responsible. Besides, your illness must have been particularly hard on you, shut up all these weeks with women and girls when all your interest and thought are with our soldiers. Even though we did not know each other very well when we were younger, I remember you had the reputation of being immensely scornful of girls.”

[136]Lieutenant Martin colored unexpectedly.

[136]

“I call that hitting below the belt and when a man is down, Miss Davis, and I thought you were a good sport.”

Nona held up both her slender hands bare of any rings.

“Hands up, I apologize.” Then she came and leaned over the bed.

“But you are better, or at least you do not seem to be suffering from anything except personal grievances. Is there anything I can do for you before dinner?”

“Sit down and talk to me, if you will.”

Without discussion Nona drew up a low chair and sat down.

In spite of the fact that he had been generally acknowledged as an extremely disagreeable and ungrateful patient, Nona had really come to like Lieutenant Jack Martin rather unusually well. 

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