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"Very simply. I have already told him that the publicity given my
name in the late proceedings has made me very uncomfortable; that
my first case of nursing would require all my self-possession and
that if he did not think it wrong I should like to go to it under
my mother's name. He made no dissent and I think I can persuade
him that I would do much better work as Miss Ayers than as the
too well-known Miss Van Arsdale."
"You have great powers of persuasion. But may you not meet people
at the hotel who know you?"
"I shall try to avoid people; and, if my identity is discovered,
its effect or non-effect upon one we find it difficult to mention
will give us our clue. If he has no guilty interest in the crime,
my connection with it as a witness will not disturb him. Besides,
two days of unsuspicious acceptance of me as Miss Grey's nurse
are all I want. I shall take immediate opportunity, I assure you,
to make the test I mentioned. But how much confidence you will
have to repose in me! I comprehend all the importance of my
undertaking, and shall work as if my honor, as well as yours,
were at stake."
"I am sure you will." Then for the first time in my life I was
glad that I was small and plain rather than tall and fascinating
like so many of my friends, for he said: "If you had been a
triumphant beauty, depending on your charms as a woman to win
people to your will, we should never have listened to your
proposition or risked our reputation in your hands. It is your
wit, your earnestness and your quiet determination which have
impressed us. You see I speak plainly. I do so because I respect
you. And now to business."
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