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.“Are you a special friend of Bartlett’s?” Peter’s question was casual.“Well - “ I hesitated.“I suppose you could say that.”Then I did something that surprised me.I looked up at Peter’s face provocatively and said lightly, “The hospital gossips have married us off to each other a dozen times this past year.”I had never been kittenish in my life before, and to deliberately try to play one man off against another was something that had always disgusted me when other girls had done it.But Peter had an odd effect on me.I wanted to impress him.I wanted to make him feel about me as I felt about him.I knew, even after such a short acquaintance - could this really be only our third meeting? - that Peter was a man who responded to a challenge.Almost instinctively, I realized that Peter would lose interest in someone who seemed easy to bowl over.But I also knew I could not disguise the attraction he had for me.So, if I was to get anywhere with him, I had to make the conquest seem difficult.Hence using Dickon as a sort of bait.Which was ridiculous really.Dickon himself had only just said that the only sure thing that would make him stop seeing me would be the sure knowledge that I didn’t want to see him any more - which meant, I knew, that Dickon would never fight for me.I would have to care about him, and him only.That was one of the big differences between the two men.And I was beginning to care a great deal about Peter.I watched him carry two cups of coffee from the self service counter, and shivered deliciously, deep inside.I had never felt this urgent excitement with Dickon.With him it was comfort and peace and laughter, but with Peter it was something quite new to me.And it was a newness I liked.As he put the coffee down on the table, Peter grinned at me rather wickedly.“So the gossips have tied you to Bartlett, have they? Well, well.How people do like to talk.”I looked up at him under my eyelashes, turning on every ounce of guileful femininity I had in me.“Uh huh! They do indeed.Not that they haven’t had cause.We’ve been to all the hospital parties and dances together for a long time.”He stirred his coffee thoughtfully.“Let’s confuse ‘em, then.Come to the next one with me, and watch the dovecotes flutter.”I could have hugged myself.My wiles had worked! I’d thrown down the gauntlet, and Peter had picked it up.“I might at that,” I said as lightly as I could.“A bit more gossip won’t hurt me.” I bit my lip.“And it might take their minds off this morning.”“This morning?”I looked at him, defiant and a little frightened.Would Peter, too, think I had done the wrong thing? It was a chance I had to take.If I didn’t tell him, someone else would - I was suprised he hadn’t heard about it already, the news had spread so fast.“There was trouble over the exam,” I said, picking my words carefully.“Nasty trouble.”He raised an eyebrow.“Well?”I took a deep breath.Then, with my eyes on my hands, clasped on the table before me, I told him the whole story, leaving nothing out.Joanna’s brother, the other nurses’ reactions, my banishment to Coventry, Chick’s attitude, everything.Everything, that is, except what Dickon had said.I felt obscurely that it was one thing to use Dickon as a challenge in my relationship with Peter, and quite another to complain about what Dickon had said.That would be - disloyal, somehow.He listened quietly, and I could feel his blue eyes on me, even though I wasn’t looking at him.When I had finished, my voice trailing away miserably, he leaned over the table, and tilted my head up with a firm finger under my chin, so that I had to look into his eyes.“And all this is bothering you? You feel guilty?”I nodded unhappily.I did feel guilty - even though I had not really meant to split on Joanna - even though the words had been said almost before I realized I had said them.If everyone was so convinced I was in the wrong, then I must be.I hadn’t the arrogance to back myself against everyone else’s opinion, without a single voice raised in my defence.“Then you are a very silly girl.” Peter’s eyes crinkled at me, turning the words into a caress.“Because you were absolutely right.Remember what I said last night about Jennings? Doesn’t this attempt of hers to cheat prove that I was right? Never mind all this sentimental guff about her brother.It’s a great pity and all that, but if she can’t pass her exams without using a crib, then she has no right to qualify.She’ll have to find another answer to her problems.But you have no obligation, moral or otherwise, to cover up for her.Why should you lose all you’ve worked for?”I nodded eagerly.“That’s what I tried to explain to Chick.But she just talked about compassion.”Peter snorted.“Lord! The sloppy way people go on! Compassion is just a fancy word to cover up sloppy thinking.This is a hard world, and people have to get on as best as they can, by themselves
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