Free Nurse Hilary by Peggy Gaddis

beauty shop, came toward them, bright-cheeked, her eyes shining.
    “ Oh, Miss Westbrook, I ’ ve had the most wonderful afternoon, ” she reported like an eager child. “ Mr. Hodding introduced me to so many nice people, and two of the ladies are interested in iris, and we had such a lovely chat. And tonight, Mr. Hodding says, we ’ re going to see a lovely ballet. A dance school in town is presenting its pupils in a recital in the solarium. Isn ’ t that lovely? ”
    She became aware of Dr. Marsden for the first time, and looked momentarily shy. But her happiness overcame her shyness, and she greeted him with almost as much warmth as she had shown Hilary.
    “ I must hurry, ” she reported happily. “ I ’ m meeting Mr. Hodding in the lounge for cocktails. ”
    “ Cocktails? ” Hilary repeated, astonished.
    Mrs. Barton laughed a small, fluting laugh.
    “ Oh, Mr. Hodding said it was really a health drink, made of tomato juice and clam juice and that it was just an appetizer before dinner, but that it made it sound gayer and more fun to speak of ‘ the cocktail hour in the lounge. ’ He is amusing, isn ’ t he? ”
    She rustled happily away, taffeta petticoats beneath the black satin making a gay, young sound.
    Hilary watched her, and Dr. Marsden watched Hilary, a warm twinkle in his eyes.
    “ And last night she was too shy, too terrified of strangers, even to go in to dinner, ” he reminded her. “ Do you still feel that you aren ’ t doing something useful, Miss Westbrook? ”
    “ No, I suppose not, ” said Hilary slowly. “ I suppose it ’ s just as important to minister to tired old minds as to tired old bodies, when you come right down to it. Only I never thought of it as a nursing job; it seemed to me more in the line of a minister, or a church group. ”
    “ That ’ s not ministering to minds, Miss Westbrook; that ’ s ministering to souls, which never grow old! And you ’ re quite right that that is a religious matter, for churches and church groups. Our job, yours and mine, is to keep the mind as well as the body flexible and alert. I ’ d say that was a very important job, wouldn ’ t you? ” asked Dr. Marsden.
    Hilary looked up at him, a twinkle in her eyes.
    “ Are you trying to convince me—or yourself, Doctor? ” she asked with a faint but inoffensive trace of impudence.
    Dr. Marsden laughed.
    “ Both of us, I suppose, ” he agreed. “ Well, I ’ d better get going. ”
    “ You ’ re not having dinner here? ” asked Hilary.
    “ I want to run out and have another look at Thad Carter, and then I ’ m reading a paper on my pet subject—gerontology, what else?—at a medical meeting. I ’ ll see you tomorrow, Miss Westbrook—and thanks again. ”
    He smiled at her, nodded and hurried out across the lobby. Hilary went on to her own room to change for dinner.
    She was just stepping into a dark green shantung frock when there was a knock at the door, and Mrs. Middleton poked a head in.
    “ Anybody home? ” she asked gaily, and added, “ What a sweet frock! I hate you. ”
    Startled, Hilary turned and studied her.
    Mrs. Middleton ’ s eyes were sweeping over Hilary ’ s slender yet gracefully rounded figure, and she put her hands on her own ample hips in the crisply starched uniform, and shook her white-capped head.
    “ What it is to be young and slender, ” she mourned. “ You make me feel like a sack of wet wash that has just broken its moorings—or shall I be graceful about it and say the back of a busted truck? ”
    “ You! ” Hilary scolded her lightly. “ You ’ re beautiful and you know it. ”
    Mrs. Middleton pretended to preen herself, a hand on her hip, the other hand touching the masses of her really beautiful hair.
    “ Oh, yes, I know; a frightful bore having all the men falling madly in love with me and threatening to throw themselves off a cliff— ” She broke off with a little shrug, ‘ and grinned impishly. “ I just barged in to tell you that