He motioned her to a seat with the wave of the fan he was vigorously using, and taking her letter of introduction, adjusted eye-glasses upon a ripe-colored nose, and read it with a scowl that rippled his face with furrows.
"So you're the first of the women nurses that's to be assigned to me," he said ungraciously, after finishing the letter, and scanning her severely for a moment over the top of his glasses.

"I suppose I have to have 'em." The manner hurt Rachel even more than the words.

Before she could frame a reply he continued: "I don't take much stock in this idea of women nurses, especially when they're young and pretty." He scowled at Rachel as if she had committed a crime in being young and beautiful.

"But the country's full of women with a Quixotic notion of being Florence Nightingales, and they've badgered the Government into accepting their services.

I suppose I'll have to take my share of them.