Page:Fantastic Universe (1956-10; vol. 8, no. 3).djvu/68

96 around after them, you know, they have to act like the big mahoff! Not him. He stops and says good-evening and tells me to keep right on with my reports."

Listening, Sara wondered secretly whether there was significance in the fact that Dr. Smith specifically asked Theresa to stay where she was and not to follow him on his rounds. Well, there was ample room for speculation in the thought and Sara had some exciting inward moments. Still, nothing might have come of her suspicions, if she had been able to avoid showing her increased interest in Dr. Smith.

One morning, about ten o'clock, while Dr. Smith was washing after an appendectomy, he spoke to her as she stood by the instrument sterilizer.

"Miss Beals?" his pleasant voice said.

She turned and found him smiling gently at her. Sweetly, rather. There was a sweetness about his entire personality for that matter. His lanky figure and gaunt face went well together, and for one thing he never looked at you as if he were thinking about ten dozen other more important people or appointments he had to keep.

"Yes, Dr. Smith," she said.

"Would you come to my office this evening?" he asked. "When you go off duty. That would be about four o'clock?"

She nodded. "Yes, Doctor. I'll change into my street clothes first if you don't mind. I'll be there about four-thirty."

It did not occur to her to refuse. And why should she? Here was a man, a charming man at that, an important man who saw her as a woman. It was quite the most thrilling thing that had ever happened to her. She was not pretty and how well she knew it. In recent years she had to depend on small kicks like having a young interne tap her shoulder as he came up behind her in the corridor, and see his eyes pop when she turned.

"Pardon me, Miss Beals. Gee, from behind you look like a student nurse sporting her cap on her first day!"

Her excitement held throughout the day, three demanding operations and three martinet surgeons to plgase notwithstanding. She knew that Dr. Smith was not married, and her speculations about his strangeness only added to her anticipation. He had to be all right! she told herself. He had come well recommended from a small western hospital some six months ago.

When she knocked on Dr. Smith's office door exactly twenty minutes past four, his voice called, "Come in please."

He was wearing a navy blue suit and a light blue tie, the color reflected in his tired eyes.

"It was good of you to come," he said, coming toward her with both hands out. He held her hands