Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/203

Rh being addressed by these fine young professionals in such free and friendly fashion. Her delight at first was a vague, conglomerate thing, no more alarming than the pleasure she had felt, still did feel, over recognitions from her women associates. It was not until one of the doctors abruptly stood out from the others, separate and distinct, that the cause of the hammering and the pounding became a definite enough thing for her to build air-castles upon.

Dr. Booth was very popular among the members of his Red Cross classes. Young—thirty-five or so—close-cropped mustache, tall and spare, with a tautness of manner and speech that betokened an over-supply of high-strung nerves held in rigorous control. And behind the curt, crisp bearing a fascinating inconsistency. For Dr. Booth, however imperious and severe he might appear when lecturing, was never anything but kind and considerate to the girls and women in his classes when he asked them questions, even if the answers were lacking in comprehension.

He appeared an aristocrat—every inch of him—to the members of his classes at the Women's Alliance. He was always scrupulously dressed. The heavily-wrought, little-finger seal-ring on his right hand (they were gentleman's hands—nicely manicured), the watch, strapped about his bony wrist, made him a subject of frequent discussion and admiration.

Reba, of course, had observed Dr. Booth—the wrist-watch, seal-ring, the black opal scarf-pin (she always did observe such details about a man), but not until the night that he summoned her to his classroom, near the close of one of his lectures, was he of any