"All right--as you like," said Lord Robert, flinging out the end of his cigarette. "You've got the pull of some of us--you can please yourself. And here we are at old Bartimaeus's, and this is a very different pair of shoes!"

They were driving out of one of London's main thoroughfares, through a groined archway, into one of London's ancient buildings with its quiet quadrangle where trees grow and birds sing. Every window of the square was lighted up, and there was a low murmur of music being played within."

"Listen!" said Lord Robert. "I am here ostensibly as the guest of the visiting physician, don't you know, but really in the interests of the little friend I told you of."

"The one I got the tickets for last week?"

"Precisely."

At the next moment they were in the ballroom. It was the lecture theatre for the students of the hospital school--a building detached from the wards and of circular shape, with a gallery round its walls, which were festooned with flags and roofed with a glass dome. Some two hundred girls and as many men were gathered there; the pit was their dancing ring and the gallery was their withdrawing room. The men were nearly all students of the medical schools; the girls were nearly all nurses, and they wore their uniform: There was not one jaded face among them, not one weary look or tired expression. They were in the fulness of youth and the height of vigour. The girls laughed with the ring of joy, their eyes sparkled with the light of happiness, their cheeks glowed with the freshness of health.

The two men stood a moment and looked on.

"Well, what do you think of it?" said Lord Robert.

Drake's wide eyes were ablaze, and his voice came in gusts.

"Think of it!" he said. "It's wonderful! It's glorious!"

Lord Robert's glass had dropped from his eye, and he was laughing in his drawling way.

"What are you laughing at? Women like these are at least natural, and Nature can not be put on."

The mazurka had just finished, and the dancers were breaking into groups.

"Robert, tell me who is that girl over there--the one looking this way? Is it your friend?"

Lord Robert readjusted his glass.

"The pretty dark girl with the pink-and-white cheeks, like a doll?"

"Yes; and the taller one beside her--all hair, and eyes, and bosom. She's looking across now. I've seen that girl before somewhere. Now, where have I seen her? Look at her--what fire, and life, and movement! The dance is over, but she can't keep her feet still."

"I see--I see. But let me introduce you to the matron and doctors first, and then----"

"I know now--I know where I've seen her! Be quick, Robert, be quick!"

Lord Robert laughed again in his tired drawl. He was finding it very amusing.

The Christian A Story by Caine, Hall, Sir, 1853-1931

XI.