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Show -395- The doctor poked his head back through the doorway. "Nurse will be with you in a minute," he said. The nurse that arrived was not the young g i r l who had shown the Professor in. She was older, a handsome middle-aged woman with black stripes on her white cap. Her fingers were gentle on the Professor's scalp as she clipped away some deftly hair about the wound, then/replaced the bandage with a smaller, neater one. "An ugly wound," she said as she worked. "It must have bled a lot." "Yes," the Professor replied. "It's healing nicely, though," the nurse went on» "just be careful when you comb those pretty gray curls." The Professor said nothing. He could feel her breath on his ear, and occasionally her breast rubbed his shoulder. What would, at another time, have given him pleasure, now nade him nervous. He wished she wouldn't talk, would just get on with it. When she finished she gave him a playful pat on the side of the head. "There you go," she said. "Come back next week and w e ' l l take those stitches out. Your hair will grow back, and you will be handsome as ever." Her playful f l a t t e r y , he found i r r i t a t i n g . He imagined what she would say when she got back with the other nurses. "I just put a bandage on the grumpiest old man," she would t e l l them. He hurried to escape, but xrhen he got to his car, he |