Nurse in Love by Jane Arbor Page A

uncomfortable under the weight of it. Which reminds me—what about Steven’s letter which you spoke of?”
    It was a veering off the subject which suited Thelma She took the letter from her bag and handed it across the table, watching Adam as he read it in silence. When he passed it back he commented: “It bears out what I was saying—he won’t take the step he mentions unless you approve it. What are you going to advise him to do?”
    Thelma’s slim fingers creased and re-creased the folds of the letter. Her eyes were lifted appealingly to Adam’s as she said: “I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you.”
    “My dear Thelma ! ” The impulsive violence of Adam’s protest was cut short as he saw the appeal in her eyes, and he added more quietly: “I’m sorry, but I mustn’t presume to advise Steven on whether to continue in Nigeria if his appointment is confirmed or to return to England, and even to the Wardrop.”
    “Why not? You’re his best friend.”
    “Even so, with his whole career at stake, I’d go no further than to put to him some arguments on both sides which he might otherwise overlook. Even for you, Thelma, to do more than that I should consider a misuse of your influence with him. This is something that he must decide for himself.”
    “He’s asked my advice.” There was a stubborn note in Thelma’s voice.
    “I still don’t think you should give it so forcibly as to sway him. And that because, for you as for me, I should judge it to be too difficult to keep your personal feelings out of the argument.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Only that, as you and Steven are greatly attached to each other, your natural inclination is surely to ask him to return. But it’s an argument you would have no right to use.”
    “And what personal feelings would you be at pains to keep out?”
    Adam looked surprised at the question, almost as if it were an impertinence. But he said slowly: “For me there’d be nothing I’d like better than to have Steven as a colleague here.”
    “Oh! Now I wondered whether you meant something quite the opposite. Whether you might have discovered suddenly that, for extremely personal reasons, you would prefer that Steven didn’t return? I mean when I came up to the ward this evening, you did appear to be holding hands with Kathryn Clare — ”
    Thelma broke off sharply, aghast at the mounting chagrin which had betrayed her into such an indiscretion to Adam, whom she was so anxious to cultivate and impress. She laughed quickly and archly, hoping to turn what she had said into the merest raillery which she was inviting him to share.
    But she was to be disappointed, for Adam’s tone was cold and withdrawn as he said: “You were mistaken, I think. I don’t ‘hold hands’ as an approach to my professional colleagues, one of whom Sister Clare happens to be. And if that’s a sample of the level on which you mean to influence Steven, you’d be well advised to reconsider it.”
    She had made a bad mistake in her handling of him, and she did not know how to regain the ground she had lost. But she said humbly: “I meant nothing—you know that. In my set that’s the sort of badinage we toss about unthinkingly. Nobody minds—for none of it is ever true, as this wasn’t. As for Steven, of course you are right. I mustn’t use as an argument any of my own wish to have him back.”
    She guessed that Adam was responding to the sincerity she was trying hard to convey. Encouraged, she went on: “Neither, I suppose, ought I to try to find out what it would mean to him to return here, when Kathryn Clare did her best to destroy his happiness — ” She stopped, completely unprepared for the crisp violence of Adam’s exclamation.
    Frowning, he said: “Isn’t it time that Kathryn Clare’s name was left out of any discussion of Steven’s future? He is a professional man with a career to make. He can’t see-saw for ever on the plea of a woman’s rejection of him,