You Took My Heart Read Online Free Page B

are only just beginning to enjoy ourselves.”
    “I’ve been enjoying myself frantically all the time,” Joan told him wistfully.
    He grinned delightedly, his ill-humor vanishing. “That was a sweet thing to say, Joanna! I ’ve been enjoying myself mightily also. All I meant was that I hate to let you go with the night so young.”
    At the door of the taxi-cab he said good night, then changed his mind and stepped in beside her.
    “I’m coming with you,” he told her. “I refuse to take you out by stealth. I’m going to be quite bold about it and return you to the Nurses’ Home as though I had every right to be with you. Because I have got every right.”
    It was well for Joan perhaps that he did make this decision. Sister Millet was waiting for them in the hall of the home, Miss Darley at her side. Miss Darley, still on duty at this, late hour after an arduous day, looked tired and faintly disgusted. The bitter Sister Millet was not one of her favorite colleagues and the spite in her voice was unpleasant as she poured out her complaint against the new probationer.
    It was a dramatic moment when the new probationer walked in calmly, Mr. Perros behind her.
    Sister Millet gasped. Miss Darley smiled. In a quiet way she would enjoy the interview which followed.
    “I’ve come to throw myself on your mercy, Miss Darley,” Garth said, his smile ingenuous and appealing. “I’ve stolen one of your probationers for the evening, but now I deliver her up to you safe and sound again. Have I offen d ed too grossly against your code, I wonder? Miss Langden, as I have already told you, is an old a friend of my family’s.”
    Miss Darley’s wise face was expressionless. “Of course you haven’t offen d ed, Mr. Perros,” she said gently. “Sister Millet has done her duty in reporting Nurse Langden, but as it happens there has been no infringment of rules. Naturally we demand discretion in behavior of our nurses where the resident medicals and the students are concerned. There is no rule against friendship with visiting doctors. As a matter of fact the point has never before arisen. It would not arise in an old and established family friendship like yours and Miss Langden’s. I hope you have both had a pleasant outing. And now. Nurse, you had better hurry away to bed if you are to be fresh for your work in the morning!”
    Her good night nod was very kindly and with a glow at her heart Joan skipped off downstairs. It was only human to feel elated over the downfall of the Millet, she told herself. But her elation suffered a little when she recalled the look of suppressed fury on the Sister’s face. They’d got away with it for the moment, she and Garth, thanks to Miss Darley. They had triumphed over old Millet most beautifully. But they had probably made an exceedingly dangerous enemy of the woman. For herself, Joan reflected bleakly as she slowly undressed, that enmity would most likely be translated into a hundred pin-pricks of humiliation every day that she continued to work in Dale Ward. Tonight wasn’t the end of the unfortunate episode by a long way!
    * * * *
    Joan’s forebodings were justified. The days that followed were made so difficult for her that it couldn’t all have been accidental. Her work in Dale Ward now seemed to be full of subtly prepared pitfalls. No doubt some of her blunders were caused by her inevitable ignorance, but when working directly for Sister Millet there were so many things she was unfairly supposed to know. The names of the instruments on the dressing trolley, for example, and the mysteries of asepsis. There were so many complicated details about sterilizing things. Hurried Scatty outlined a few of them, answering her nervous questions as fully as she could. But even so there were dangerous gaps in her knowledge.
    It was a bad day when Scatty had a whole holiday and the buffer of her experienced presence was removed. Joan was entirely at the mercy of Sister Millet that black Monday and