"I'm afraid not, Max. I've promised Sidney Page to speak about her to you.
She wants to enter the training-school."

"Too young," said Max briefly. "Why, she can't be over sixteen."

"She's eighteen."

"Well, even eighteen. Do you think any girl of that age is responsible
enough to have life and death put in her hands? Besides, although I haven't
noticed her lately, she used to be a pretty little thing. There is no use
filling up the wards with a lot of ornaments; it keeps the internes all
stewed up."

"Since when," asked Dr. Ed mildly, "have you found good looks in a girl a
handicap?"

In the end they compromised. Max would see Sidney at his office. It would
be better than having her run across the Street--would put things on the
right footing. For, if he did have her admitted, she would have to learn
at once that he was no longer "Dr. Max"; that, as a matter of fact, he was
now staff, and entitled to much dignity, to speech without contradiction or
argument, to clean towels, and a deferential interne at his elbow.

Having given his promise, Max promptly forgot about it. The Street did not
interest him. Christine and Sidney had been children when he went to
Vienna, and since his return he had hardly noticed them. Society, always
kind to single men of good appearance and easy good manners, had taken him
up. He wore dinner or evening clothes five nights out of seven, and was
supposed by his conservative old neighbors to be going the pace. The rumor
had been fed by Mrs. Rosenfeld, who, starting out for her day's washing at