Flash and Filigree Read Online Free

limits of its required shortness, changed the order of her hair.
    All smiles now on her way to the Dispensary, she passed several patients and two or three nurses from other wards; then, at one blind turning, she almost crashed into heavy Beth Jackson of gyno, senior service nurse at the Clinic.
    They spoke together hurriedly, Miss Mintner in confidence, as a little girl breathless in the great woman’s presence, giving an awed account of what had happened in the day-room, and Nurse Jackson, understanding now and in genuine sympathy at what was inferred: the very deliberate unfairness of it. Shaking her head slowly, her small eyes darkly grave, she almost drew the child to her bosom. But they neither mentioned Eleanor Thorne by name.
    Mr. Edwards, the pharmacist, was not at the Dispensary. His nephew, Ralph, was there, sitting behind the counter reading a book. Ralph Edwards was studying pharmacy in the University and often visited his uncle at the Clinic, but he had never, so far as Miss Mintner could know, been left there alone, in charge of the Dispensary.
    She stood at the counter and pretended not to notice when the young man looked up, already smiling as if there were some joke between them.
    “Hello there.” He lumbered forward, humorous with himself in the attitude of a clerk. “What will it be, aspirin or sodium chloride?”
    Miss Mintner felt at once that what was supposed to be funny was the ridiculous (to him) idea of his being in a subservient position to her, and it came with the same shock as had he simply said outright: “Yes, this is something we have to do, but if I had you in the back seat of my room-mate’s convertible, you’d be panting hot by now!” It was intolerable.
    “Mr. Edwards,” she said coolly, stating her business.
    “That’s me,” said the young man, even half winking. He leaned toward her on the counter, arched his brow in mock disappointment. “I thought you knew.”
    “I don’t know to what you’re referring,” said Miss Mintner, not looking his way. She fought down an urge to touch her hair. “Where is the pharmacist?” she said, and with a surprising effort, she rechanneled the other impulse into turning her head and giving the young man a very icy stare.
    And so he began to cool, either in fear of causing his uncle some embarrassment, or in real offense. He straightened up. “He was called out,” he said moving back to the chair, “. . . on an emergency. He and Albert went with Dr. Evans. They should be back any time now.” He sat with the open book on his lap, pretending to regard Miss Mintner curiously, as she appeared not to be listening. “If it’s nothing that has to be compounded, of course,” he went on after a moment, “I can get it for you myself.”
    Not wearing a tie, she thought, a grown man; and needing a shave. She guessed this without looking, only feeling at once a thousand stiff prickles on her own soft face.
    “Bromide powder,” she said. “And a small bottle of distilled water.”
    The young man stood up, setting a bottle of the water on the counter as he did. “How much bromide?”
    Miss Mintner hesitated. “They’re right there,” she said, pointing and, painfully then, as at a loss with his dullness, “in that blue box on the second shelf. Just give me one of those packages.”
    She averted her eyes from his smile as he crossed to the shelf and took a small glassine envelope from the box.
    “Yes,” he said looking quizzical, “that would be about a half gram, wouldn’t it?” He handed it over giving her his devastating grin as he did. “Or seven-point-six grains.”
    She took it from his hand at once, snatched up the bottle of water. “Thank you,” she said airily, as though it were only her breeding that said it, and she turned away with a toss of her head. With her hair so short, the gesture was grotesque.
    She marched back to the day-room, saying to herself most of the way: What an absolute fool he is! Halfway down the