Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1942-04-03
Wherein a Cold
Shoulder Opens the
Way to a Warm
Heart
IN TWO PARTS-PART ONE

It wasn't true but they said that
interesting ailment or a million dol
lars behind you to step for examina-
ton into the Madison Avenue offices
Of Dr. James L. Coventry.
The myth had two sources. One was
the history and the high surgeons
skill of DR.. Coventry. himself. Doctors
said he was a scalpel with a brain).
The other was the size OF his offices.
which added up to practically small
hospital.
The doctor was graduate cum laude
from the Harvard School of Medicine
with post graduate work to his credit
in Munich. HIS stocky figure. his square,
blunt face and his shock of gray hair
we're familiar at Stuyvesant hospital,
where he was chief of staff. They were
also familiar at the City Clinic where
he performed the same services for a
poor woman that would have cost
moneyed patient sum running into
five figures. He followed the age-old
physicians custom of charging pa
TENTS what their financial backgrounds
would bear.
The doctor was quite a character,
outstanding not only for his skill but
for his firm belief in European medi-
cal methods. He spent two months of
every year studying the technicues of
doctors and surgeons in Munich, Paris
or London. 1t was ON one of these
"sabbaticals" that he acquired Illona.
Illona was Mademoselle Illona Vadga,
born in a suburb of Budapest, &c years
before his first sight of her. educated
through her childhood in England and
trained as a nurse in Paris. Dr. Cow
entry, watching her assist the great
Georgias in difficult abdominal op-
Grafton in the ampitheater Of the Hos
pital st. Clair, decided she was the
most efficient surgical nurse he ever
had seen at work. He meant. he told
Mrs. Coventry at their apartment that
night. to bring her back to New York
with him to organize his offices. 1t
might be difficult to get her away. He
would appreciate Mrs. Coventry's help.
rs she pretty?" Mrs. Coventry asked.
"Pretty?" the doctor repeated and
looked at her. why, I believe she is.
Yes, I'd say she was pretty"
Bring her to dinner, Jim" Mrs. Cov-
entry laughed. Il want to see whether
it's safe to help you. She might turn
out to be dangerous rival
"Rival?" DR.. Coventry asked IN
what? Oh I see. You're joking. I'll
bring her"
He brought her and the two of them
had shamefully lured her from Paris
and the Great Georgias, though not
without protest from the latter.
Americans" he stormed, have no
call go-getters. And you have no graft
f,tS int tn hac
I've ever had and then you leave me-"
But it will be only for year." IL
Iona protested gently. II go on a stu
dents passport. Then I will come back
if you will have me-"
So she had come to New York and
DR.. Coventry's offices almost a year
ago-it was II months-and she had
organized the offices until everything
ran as smoothly as a watch. DR.. Cow
entry had said so. And DR.. Edward
Singleton, x-ray pathologist, and DR..
Walter Barrett, diagnostician, and DR..
Ward Pennant. his assistant. They all
had said so many times.
But Miss Brenda Dale, DR.. Hazelton's
nurse, had never said so; nor Miss
Emily Walton, DR.. Barrett's nurse, nor
N11oo NQdC ISsohi6, LII
nor Miss Shirley Parker, the reception
ist. They had never said anything good
about Mademoiselle Illona Vadga. On
the contrary, they said many things
that were very bad and were not true.
And in a month, she would have to
return to Paris because renewal OF her
passport had been refused 1t had come
back two weeks ago with her letter
requesting renewal with the words, re-
quest refused stamped in big red block
letters across its face.
Illona thought about all these things
as she changed from her street clothes
into her speckless, family starched
uniform in the tiny anteroom off DR..
Coventry's office one morning in early
spring. And they all made her sad.
The fact that none of the other women
In the office loved her made her sad
because who does not want love? But
she understood it little. 1t was be-
cause she was a foreign woman and
because she was in authority over them.
They thought she was too strict In
her discipline because American wom-