Отрывок из книги
But to good purpose, it seemed; the ice had gone, Gideon’s blue eyes were warm again. His voice was warm, too. “I’m sorry I was angry, Arabella, I’m not anymore. But why are you so anxious to pair me off with Hilary?” She remembered what Hilary had said.
“Well, Hilary told me…that is, you mustn’t mind her going out with Mr. Andrews—she doesn’t like him very much, only she promised him and she stood him up last week. Hilary didn’t mean you to quarrel about it…perhaps you could take her out tomorrow evening instead.” He was staring at her with an expressionless face.
.....
On the third floor, where she had her room, there was a good deal of laughing and talking. Second dinner was just over, the young ladies who had eaten it were making themselves a cup of tea. They crowded into her room, obligingly filling a mug of the comforting liquid for her, and carrying on a ceaseless chatter while she cast off her green jersey dress and tore into her blue and white striped uniform. Between heartening mouthfuls of scalding tea, she answered her companions’ questions as to her days off, exclaimed suitably over the latest hospital gossip, and agreed to go with a number of her friends to the cinema on her next free evening. It wasn’t until they were crowding through the door that she told them she was going to take her cousin’s place on the children’s bus trip.
The dozen or so nurses milling around her paused in their headlong flight back to their work on the wards. ‘Arabella, you can’t!’ exclaimed Anne Morgan, one of her particular friends. ‘Old Brewster’s in charge and there are to be twenty-two kids and they’re almost all more or less helpless—it’ll be terrible!’
.....
