Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/127

Rh She led me through to the next room, all done in yellow brocade. I'd seen enough French farces to feel sure that it was a boudoir. And it was a beautiful room to be in, if you were positive as to just when and how you were going to get out of it. "And what do I have to do when I go to bed?" I asked, watching Miss Ledwidge as she carried in a flesh-colored night-gown of hand-embroidered crêpe-de-chine with a runway of French knots along the plaza and baby-runs down the side streets. It was a dream of a nightie, the sort of cobwebby thing every woman loves to slip into. The nurse must have noticed that hungry look on my face as I stared at it, for she smiled as she motioned for me to get off my street duds.

"Honest Injun, are you a professional nurse?" I asked her still again as I began to unpeel. "Why shouldn't I be?" she parried, as she moved over to the dressing-table, without much show of interest in my question.

I laughed a little.

"Well, my idea of a professional nurse is a woman who's trying to make good by helping others when they need help. I kind of think of her as a person who's giving up her life to do what she can for the sick and the helpless."