"Why don't you let me cut it off properly?" she said, in a strangled
tone.

The total result of this was that Jane Brown was reprimanded by the
First Assistant, and learned some things about ethics.

"But," she protested, "it was both stupid and cruel. And if I know I
am right----"

"How are you to know you are right?" demanded the First Assistant,
crossly. Her feet were stinging. "'A little knowledge is a dangerous
thing.'" This was a favorite quotation of hers, although not
Browning. "Nurses in hospitals are there to carry out the doctor's
orders. Not to think or to say what they think unless they are
asked. To be intelligent, but----"

"But not too intelligent!" said the Probationer. "I see."

This was duly reported to the Head, who observed that it was merely
what she had expected and extremely pert. Her cold was hardly any
better.

It was taking the Probationer quite a time to realise her own total
lack of significance in all this. She had been accustomed to men who
rose when a woman entered a room and remained standing as long as
she stood. And now she was in a new world, where she had to rise and
remain standing while a cocky youth in ducks, just out of medical
college, sauntered in with his hands in his pockets and took a
_boutonnière_ from the ward bouquet.