"S'right.

' "Well, I'm sorry to tell you that she's at St Elmer's; she came to get help for a pain and she requires an urgent operation.

Would you come back with me and sign a consent form?

' The woman showed neither surprise or distress.

"Now wot's she bin up to?

' she demanded.

"Perfect little 'orror that girl's bin, always on the streets.

I can't come.

' "Then your husband?

It will only take a few minutes.

' "E's in the pub, your won't get 'im ter go.

' Beth paused; they had been joined by the neighbours living on either side, listening unashamedly and with great interest.

"Tracey ill, is she?

' cried one of them.

"Wot's she got?

' Beth sensed an ally.

"Something wrong inside, it's urgent.

' "Your got ter go," urged the second woman, 'praps she'll die and then where'll your be?

Up before the beak, most likely--lot o' nosey parkers.

You go along, Mrs Blake, I'll keep an eye on young Bert and Elsie.

' She cast an inquiring eye over Beth.

"And 'oo are you?

' she wanted to know.

"A Staff nurse at St Elmer's--there wasn't time to ring the police and get them to bring a message.

' "There your are--you get a move on, Mrs Blake, like I said, and one of us'll slip across ter the Swan and tell your 'us band.

' "Oh, well," Mrs Blake agreed reluctantly, and with still more reluctance fetched a shapeless cardigan and a terrible felt hat which she crammed on to her untidy head without recourse to a mirror.

"Tope it's worth it," she told Beth darkly as she joined her.

Tracey was still in Casualty with Harriet King, being got ready for theatre, and there was no sign of either the profess or or the registrar, or even William, a state of affairs which didn't please Mrs Blake at all.

She took one look at her daughter, wanted to know impatiently what she'd been up to, and demanded to see a doctor, and Beth, who had been filling out the consent form for her to sign and listening with one ear to Emily's efforts to explain that the Casualty Officer would return in a very short time, picked up the telephone and asked Hill to fetch Profess or van Zeust or his registrar down at once.

The profess or came, walking without undue haste, looking calm and a little grave, just, thought Beth approvingly, exactly how a profess or of surgery should look.

Mrs Blake must have shared the same thought, for she stopped her complaining at once and waited for him to speak.

"Mrs Blake?

I am glad that you came so promptly, I am only sorry if this has been a shock to you.

Tracey needs an immediate abdominal operation, I'm afraid, but of course we can do nothing until you or her father will consent to it.

' "Wot's up wither ' asked Mrs Blake, and added uncertainly, "Doc.

' "She is bleeding severely inside; she had already lost a good deal of blood and we cannot afford to wait, but I am confident that we can put matters right if we see to it now.

' "OK But mind you.

Doc, I want ter know all about it.

Is it a baby?

' He looked at her gravely.

"Something of that sort.

If you will wait here I will come and talk to you about it as soon as I have operated.

' "Ow long's that?" His calm was unruffled. "An hour. You will be able to see her when she goes to the ward." "Oh--so I 'aster wait 'ere, I suppose?"

His eyes flickered towards Beth. "Please, and I am sure that Staff Nurse will keep you company and get you some tea. You have signed the form?" He went away without another glance at Beth, who supposed that he had forgotten that she wasn't on duty, nor in uniform, nor, for that matter, had anything to do with the affair; she had found the girl, it was true, but she had handed her over to the right people and should have been allowed to disappear quietly about her own business. Oh, well, she thought resignedly, she had had nothing to do that evening, anyway.

The hour pa.s.sed very slowly.

Mrs Blake, drinking one cup of tea after another, and smoking cigarettes non-stop, spoke very little.

Beth, under the mistaken impression that she was upset about her daughter, tried several lines of cheerful sympathetic talk without much result; it wasn't until she had ploughed her way through half an hour of this kind of comfort that Mrs Blake horrified her by saying: "Don't come the soft chat with me, ducks, our Tracey 'asn't bin 'ome for weeks--always was a little nuisance, I can tell your.

There ain't no love lost between us, I can tell your and 'er dad don't bother wither neither.

' This forthright statement had the effect of drying up Beth completely; she fetched another cup of tea and was profoundly relieved when the profess or joined them.

"I'm sorry you have had to wait," he told Mrs Blake, 'but if we might have that little talk about Tracey.

' He paused and Beth rightly interpreted the pause as a hint for her to make herself scarce.

As she reached the door he called out to her: "Get Hill to telephone home and tell Mrs Silver, will you?

About half an hour.

' She gave the message and then wandered about the empty grandeur of the entrance hall.

She didn't like to go to Cas.

to see if William was there; besides, if he was, he would be busy and she wouldn't be able to talk to him, and if he wasn't there, she hadn't the least idea where he might be.

She paced round and round, wanting her dinner, wanting to get away from the hospital and the chain smoking, unfeeling Mrs Blake; it was frightening to know that there were mothers like her, and still more frightening wondering what would happen to Tracey.

Her head began to ache and she went and leaned her forehead on the gla.s.s of the door to cool it.

"Ah, there you are," said the profess or cheerfully, coming up behind her at such a great rate that she had no time to turn round, but was swept through the doors without further ado and into the car, and was being driven away before she could ask: "She's all right?

She'll pull through?

' "Yes--we caught her just in time--thanks to you, dear girl.

' His voice was warm, but she sensed that he didn't want to talk just then, so she sat silent as he drove through the thinly trafficked streets, and when they reached his house and he got out to open its door for her, she went in quickly and made for the stairs; possibly he had a great deal on his mind and didn't want company, and if he didn't mention dinner she would say nothing either, but go to the kitchen later and get Mrs Silver to give her something on a tray.

But she had barely taken a step when she was stopped by his hand clamped on to a shoulder, and twiddled round to face him.

"Beth, what should I have done without you this evening?

So quick and sensible and kind.

' He bent suddenly and kissed her.

"You are a gem of a girl.

' The wholly delightful sensation this engendered in her was shattered by his careless: "Lord, I'm famished, aren't you?

I wonder what Mrs Silver has for us?

' Whatever it was, she found that she had no appet.i.te for it; she wasn't a girl who had been kissed all that much, but when she was, she preferred to be kissed with due deliberation, not in the same breath as an urgent demand for dinner.

She stifled peevishness as she sat down to table with him, and in the intervals of not doing justice to Mrs Silver's delicious cooking, asked him the sort of questions she imagined he wished to be asked.

He answered them readily enough, even going to great lengths to tell her the future Tracey had so nearly lost would be restored to her with the help of the social worker.

4 had no idea that you were so immersed in your work," he commented dryly as they sat over their coffee, and she was on the point of telling him that she wasn't, really, only she had wanted to know about poor little Tracey, when it occurred to her that he was really only making conversation; his thoughts were far away with something--or someone--else.

She lapsed into silence until he asked: "You saw William, I suppose?

Everything is arranged, I hope?

' "Yes, thank you.

' She would have told him more about that, but the idea had taken root that he was becoming bored with her; as long as things had been arranged satisfactorily to suit his sister, he wasn't interested further.

She swallowed the rest of her coffee and excused herself on the plea of having letters to write before she went to bed.

He went to open the door for her with the easy good manners which she found so pleasant, and wished her good night in a voice which, while friendly, held none of the tones which she had heard or imagined she had heard?

earlier that evening.

Something had put him out, she thought as she went upstairs, or else he was worried.

She fell into uneasy sleep, trying to decide which it was.

Viewed in the cheerful brightness of an early morning in April, though, she had to admit to herself that her mood of the previous evening had been a silly one.

What had she to brood about, anyway?

The profess or had every right to be thoughtful or annoyed if he wished, and if he had felt like kissing her as a mark of appreciation for her help, there was no need for her to enlarge upon that, either.

She jumped out of bed, telling herself robustly not to waste time worrying about things which were really none of her business.

Mevrouw Thor becke came home two days later, looking a little pale and tired.

The profess or had driven her back himself, and Beth, who had hardly set eyes on him during the last couple of days, greeted him politely as he helped his sister into the house before suggesting to the invalid that bed might be welcome after the exertions of leaving hospital.

"The children are dying to see you," she explained, 'and I thought it would be far less tiring for you if I were to pop you into bed first.

' An idea to which the profess or subscribed wholeheartedly, so that Mevrouw Thor becke was a.s.sisted upstairs to her room arid made comfortable before the children were allowed to visit her; a prudent move as it turned out, for they were wild with excitement, all wanting to talk at once, so that Beth's tactful suggestion that they should eat their supper while their mother had a light meal herself, sitting comfortably in bed, was welcomed by the invalid, even though the routine of the household was a little put out.

"But there," said Mrs Silver, a good deal later, serving Beth's solitary dinner in the dining room, 'it makes no odds, does it, miss?

With the profess or out all the evening and Mevrouw nicely settled in, and all those dear children tucked up for the night.

You'll be glad to get to your own bed, I don't doubt.

A tiring day it's been.

' Beth agreed; it had been busy enough, true, although she wasn't tired, indeed she would have welcomed some company in which to eat her dinner, although she quite saw that the profess or was hardly likely to stay home in order to entertain her.

She praised Mrs Silver's cooking, helped to clear the table because it was Miss Powers' half day off and then went to cast an eye over her various charges.

The children were asleep, their faces angelic in the dim night lights; their mother was sitting up in bed leafing through a magazine which she put down as Beth entered.