"... but I haven't got anything much today," he said, with a
disparaging wave of his hand towards his test-tubes. "Not a single
death-warrant. Oh yes, I have too, one brought in yesterday." He
brought them a test-tube, stoppered with cotton, and bade them note
a tiny bluish patch on the clear gelatine at the bottom. "That means
he's a dead one, as much as if he faced the electric chair," he
explained. To the nurse he added, "A fellow in the men's ward,
Pavilion G. Very interesting culture ... first of that kind I've had
since I've been here." As he spoke he was looking at Sylvia with an
open admiration, bold, intrusive, flippant.
They were passing along another corridor, hot, silent, their footsteps
falling dully on a long runner of corrugated rubber, with red borders
which drew together in the distance like the rails streaming away from
a train. Behind a closed door there suddenly rose, and as quickly died
away, a scream of pain. With an effort Sylvia resisted the impulse to
clap her hands over her ears.
"Here we are, at the minor operating-room," said Miss Lindstroem,
pausing. "It's against the rules, but if you want to look from across
the room--just to say you've been there--" She held the door open a
little, a suffocating odor of anaesthetics blew out in their faces,
like a breath from a dragon's cave. Mrs. Marshall and Judith stepped
forward.
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