ast tray. She was not my nurse; she was
the enamelled blonde receptionist.

She had lost some of her enamelled sophistication. It was not evident in
her make-up, her dress, or her hair-do. These were perfection. In fact,
she bore that store-window look that made me think of an automaton,
triggered to make the right noises and to present the proper expression
at the correct time. As though she had never had a thought of her own or
an emotion that was above the level of very mild interest. As if the
perfection of her dress and the characterless beauty of her face were
more important than anything else in her life.

But the loss of absolute plate-glass impersonality was gone, and it took
me some several moments to dig it out of her appearance. Then I saw it.
Her eyes. They no longer looked glassily out of that clear oval face at
a point about three inches above my left shoulder, but they were
centered on me from no matter what point in the room she'd be as she
went about the business of running open the blinds, checking the this
and that and the other like any nurses' helper.

Finally she placed my tray on the bed-table and stood looking down at
me.

From my first meeting with her I knew she was no telepath, so I bluntly
said, "Where's the regular girl? Where's my nurse?"

"I'm taking over for the time," she told me. Her voice was strained;
she'd been trying to use that too-deeply cultured tone she used as the
professional receptionist but the voice had cracked through the training
enough to let some of her natural tone come through.

"Why?"

Then she relaxed completely, or maybe it was a matter of coming unglued.
Her face allowed itself to take on some character and her body ceased
being that rigid window-dummy type. "What's your trouble--?" I asked her
softly. She had something on her mind that was a bit too big for her,
but her training was not broad enough to allow her to get it out. I
hoped to help, if I could. I also wanted to know what she was doing
here. If Scholar Phelps was thinking about putting a lever on me of the
female type, he'd guessed wrong.

She was looking at me and I could see a fragment of fright in her face.

"Is it terrible?" she asked me in a whisper.

"Is what terrible?"

"Me--Me--Mekstrom's D--Disease--" The last word came out with a couple
of big tears oozing from closed lids.

"Why?" I asked. "Do I look all shot to bits?"

She opened the eyes and looked at me. "Does it hurt?"