Nurse in Love by Jane Arbor

more than that of working colleagues with common problems. But since it was the only kind of understanding they were likely to achieve, she would have counted it valuable, hoping that he would come to do the same.
    After all, he had troubled to offer her some astringent comfort; he had used his own philosophy to try to teach her courage; momentarily, even, his touch upon her shoulder had been sympathetic. Then Thelma had been there, her arrogance immediately taking possession of him, demanding and getting his whole attention. And because of Thelma he became once more in Kathryn’s thoughts the near-enemy he had appeared to be at their first meeting.
    He and Thelma Carter—allied against her. The thought recurred and persisted. But was it pride alone that cared? Or something more?
    Because they were late the dining-room at the Club was almost empty when Thelma and Adam arrived—a circumstance which did not please Thelma particularly. She had hoped to be able to nod to a good many of her friends from the well-placed table to which they were shown, and the knowledge that the evening’s purpose was already half wasted sharpened her tongue as she asked the question she had meant to put more casually.
    “What do I think of Kathryn Clare?” Adam repeated it after her, taking time to consider it before he answered slowly. “I found her not at all what I expected.”
    “Not?” Thelma’s echo was sharp, more dismayed than she intended. Lest he should guess it mattered to her what he thought of Kathryn, she added silkily: “Perhaps I gave you a wrong impression. When I told you what she had done to Steven I may have been too angry with her for his sake. But you know,” she added obliquely, “there’s no rule that a woman of her sort should run true to an utterly impossible type.”
    “Whatever impression you gave me, I shouldn’t have counted her looks as important either way,” shrugged Adam. “What I meant was that I had not expected to find her a most efficient ward Sister, whose work I can’t fault.”
    “Oh !” Thelma sounded relieved.
    “Also possessing a certain strength of character which it might have been good for Steven, particularly, to share,” went on Adam smoothly.
    Thelma wrinkled her nose in distaste. “ ‘Efficiency’. ‘Strength of character’! Do you know, Adam, I’d hate to think that they were the only qualities a man could ascribe to me? But I daresay she has been at pains to conceal the particular one which enabled her to lead Steven on and then to let him down quite, quite callously. And after all, you only meet on the ward, don’t you, where efficiency is probably her easiest card to play?”
    “Not only on the ward. Once, too, at a mutual friend’s,” corrected Adam.
    “Where?” Thelma’s curiosity was too much for her good manners.
    “At Mr . and Mrs . Thorley’s. Steven would remember Victor Thorley. He was a junior master at Repstow when we were there. When I looked up Victor, Kathryn Clare was there too.”
    “Yes, I remember now. The Thorleys are looking after the young sister of a protégée of hers, one of the student nurses.” Thelma made a mental note of Adam’s and Kathryn’s connection with the Thorleys, but dismissed it for the moment as something else rankled more. She said accusingly: “If you say Steven needs another person’s strength, does that imply that you consider he—he’s a weakling?”
    Adam’s grey eyes, straight and uncompromising, met hers. “He has always depended a great deal upon you, hasn’t he, Thelma?”
    “If you mean that he usually considers me before himself—yes.”
    “More than that, I think. I should judge that he looks to you for guidance in any action, great or small.”
    “What of it? Doesn’t that show an unusual consideration of me?”
    Adam smiled. “It’s no cause for apology, certainly. It’s only that such a degree of power over another person confers a heavy responsibility. Some people would be