r. Were we late? I
looked at the other trays. We were not late; it was untrue. She had said
that because she had had to wrap her barb in something and hadn't the
courage to reprove me officially. I resented that and her air of
equality. Since I am under her authority and agree to it, why dare she
not use it?

As for me, I dared not speak to her all the evening. She would have no
weapons against me. If I am to remember she is my Sister I must hold my
hand over my mouth.

She would not speak to me, either. That was wrong of her: she is in
authority, not I.

It is difficult for her because she is so young; but I have no room for
sympathy.

At moments I forget her position and, burning with resentment, I
reflect, " ... this schoolgirl...."

To-day I walked down to the hospital thinking: "I must be stronger. It
is I who, in the inverted position of things, should be the stronger. He
is being tortured, and he has no release. He cannot even be alone a
moment."

But at the hospital gates I thought of nothing but that I should see
him.

In the bunk sat the eldest Sister, writing in a book. It passed through
my head that the two Sisters had probably "sat" on my affairs together.
I wondered without interest what the other had told her. Putting on my
cap, I walked into the ward.

Surely his bed had had a pink eiderdown!

I walked up the ward and looked at it; but I knew without need of a
second glance what had happened.

His bed was made in the fashion in which we make an empty bed, a bed
that waits for a new patient. His locker was empty and stood open,
already scrubbed. I smiled as I noticed they hadn't even left me that to
do.

No one volunteered a word of explanation, no one took the trouble to say
he had gone.

These women.... I smiled again. Only the comic phrase rang in my head
"They've properly done me in! Properly done me in...."

I went downstairs and fetched the trays, and all the time the smile was
on my lips. These women.... Somehow I had the better of the Sister. It
is better to be in the wrong than in the right.

His friends looked at me a little, but apparently he had left no message
for me.

Later I learnt that he had been taken to another hospital at two, while
I came on at three.

Once during the evening the eldest Sister mentioned vaguely, "So-and-so
has gone."

And I said aloud, after a little reflection, "Yes ... in the nick of
time, Sister."

During the evening I realized that