probability it would telescope her knee-joints. And never indeed now
that she came to think of it had the arches of her feet felt less
capable of resisting so terrible an impact. Quite unconsciously she
groped out a little with one hand to steady herself against the edge of
the desk.

But the blow when it came was nothing but a cool finger tapping her
pulse.

"There! There!" crooned the Superintendent's voice with a most amazing
tolerance.

"But I won't 'there--there'!" snapped Rae Malgregor. Her eyes were wide
open again now, and extravagantly dilated.

The cool fingers on her pulse seemed to tighten a little. "S--sh!
S--sh!" admonished the Superintendent's mumbling lips.

"But I won't 'S--sh--S--sh'!" stormed Rae Malgregor. Never before in
her three years' hospital training had she seen her arch-enemy, the
Superintendent, so utterly disarmed of irascible temper and arrogant
dignity, and the sight perplexed and maddened her at one and the same
moment. "But I won't 'S--sh--S--sh'!" Desperately she jerked her curly
blonde head in the direction of the clock on the wall. "Here it's four
o'clock now!" she cried. "And in less than four hours you're going to
try and make me graduate--and go out into the world--God knows
where--and charge innocent people twenty-five dollars a week and
washing, likelier than not, mind you, for these hands," she gestured,
"that don't co-ordinate at all with this face," she grimaced, "but with
the face of one of the House Doctors--or the Senior Surgeon--or even