diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:48:10 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:48:10 -0700 |
| commit | 579ffeaa2bef8eb1339e01463448a7150cdb8b6f (patch) | |
| tree | 659003624071666fa0f0693d779c90cdf1982f3a | |
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 16115-8.txt | 7480 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 16115-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 141941 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 16115-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 259876 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 16115-h/16115-h.htm | 7580 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 16115-h/images/frontispiece.jpg | bin | 0 -> 44263 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 16115-h/images/gs01.jpg | bin | 0 -> 67248 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 16115.txt | 7480 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 16115.zip | bin | 0 -> 141926 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
11 files changed, 22556 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/16115-8.txt b/16115-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..56d9bab --- /dev/null +++ b/16115-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7480 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Red Pepper's Patients, by Grace S. Richmond + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Red Pepper's Patients + With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular + + +Author: Grace S. Richmond + + + +Release Date: June 23, 2005 [eBook #16115] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RED PEPPER'S PATIENTS*** + + +E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Irma Spehar, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) + + + +RED PEPPER'S PATIENTS + +With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular + +by + +GRACE S. RICHMOND + +Garden City New York +Doubleday, Page & Company + +1918 + + + + + + + +[Illustration: FRONTISPIECE] + + + +[Illustration: "Red Pepper" Burns, M.D.] + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER + + I. AN INTELLIGENT PRESCRIPTION + + II. LITTLE HUNGARY + + III. ANNE LINTON'S TEMPERATURE + + IV. TWO RED HEADS + + V. SUSQUEHANNA + + VI. HEAVY LOCAL MAILS + + VII. WHITE LILACS + + VIII. EXPERT DIAGNOSIS + + IX. JORDAN IS A MAN + + X. THE SURGICAL FIRING LINE + + XI. THE ONLY SAFE PLACE + + XII. THE TRUTH ABOUT SUSQUEHANNA + + XIII. RED HEADED AGAIN + + XIV. A STRANGE DAY + + XV. CLEARED DECKS + + XVI. WHITE LILACS AGAIN + + XVII. RED'S DEAREST PATIENTS + + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +AN INTELLIGENT PRESCRIPTION + +The man in the silk-lined, London-made overcoat, holding his hat firmly +on his head lest the January wind send its expensive perfection into the +gutter, paused to ask his way of the man with no overcoat, his hands +shoved into his ragged pockets, his shapeless headgear crowded down over +his eyes, red and bleary with the piercing wind. + +"Burns?" repeated the second man to the question of the first. "Doc +Burns? Sure! Next house beyond the corner--the brick one." He turned to +point. "Tell it by the rigs hitched. It's his office hours. You'll do +some waitin', tell ye that." + +The questioner smiled--a slightly superior smile. "Thank you," he said, +and passed on. He arrived at the corner and paused briefly, considering +the row of vehicles in front of the old, low-lying brick house with its +comfortable, white-pillared porches. The row was indeed a formidable +one and suggested many waiting people within the house. But after an +instant's hesitation he turned up the gravel path toward the wing of the +house upon whose door could be seen the lettering of an inconspicuous +sign. As he came near he made out that the sign read "R.P. Burns, M.D.," +and that the table of office hours below set forth that the present hour +was one of those designated. + +"I'll get a line on your practice, Red," said the stranger to himself, +and laid hand upon the doorbell. "Incidentally, perhaps, I'll get a line +on why you stick to a small suburban town like this when you might be in +the thick of things. A fellow whom I've twice met in Vienna, too. I +can't understand it." + +A fair-haired young woman in a white uniform and cap admitted the +newcomer and pointed him to the one chair left unoccupied in the large +and crowded waiting-room. It was a pleasant room, in a well-worn sort of +way, and the blazing wood fire in a sturdy fireplace, the rows of +dull-toned books cramming a solid phalanx of bookcases, and a number of +interesting old prints on the walls gave it, as the stranger, lifting +critical eyes, was obliged to admit to himself, a curious air of dignity +in spite of the mingled atmosphere of drugs and patients which assailed +his fastidious nostrils. As for the patients themselves, since they +were all about him, he could hardly do less than observe them, although +he helped himself to a late magazine from a well-filled table at his +side and mechanically turned its pages. + +The first to claim his attention was a little girl at his elbow. She +could hardly fail to catch his eye, she was so conspicuous with +bandages. One eye, one cheek, the whole of her neck, and both her hands +were swathed in white, but the other cheek was rosy, and the uncovered +eye twinkled bravely as she smiled at the stranger. "I was burned," she +said proudly. + +"I see," returned the stranger, speaking very low, for he was conscious +that the entire roomful of people was listening. "And you are getting +better?" + +"Oh, yes!" exulted the child. "Doctor's making me have new skin. He gets +me more new skin every day. I didn't have any at all. It was all burned +off." + +"That's very good of him," murmured the stranger. + +"He's awful good," said the child, "when he isn't cross. He isn't ever +cross to me, Doctor isn't." + +There was a general murmur of amusement in the room, and another child, +not far away, laughed aloud. The stranger furtively scrutinized the +other patients one by one, lifting apparently casual glances from +behind his magazine. Several, presumably the owners of the vehicles +outside, were of the typical village type, but there were others more +sophisticated, and several who were palpably persons of wealth. One late +comer was admitted who left a luxuriously appointed motor across the +street, and brought in with her an atmosphere of costly furs and violets +and fresh air. + +"Certainly a mixed crowd," said the stranger to himself behind his +magazine; "but not so different, after all, from most doctors' +waiting-room crowds. I might send in a card, but, if I remember Red, it +wouldn't get me anything--and this is rather interesting anyhow. I'll +wait." + +He waited, for he wished the waiting room to be clear when he should +approach that busy consulting room beyond. Meanwhile, people came and +went. The door into the inner room would swing open, a patient would +emerge, a curt but pleasant "Good-bye" in a deep voice following him or +her out, and the fair-haired nurse, who sat at a desk near the door or +came out of the consulting room with the patient, would summon the next. +The lady of the furs and violets sent in her card, but, as the stranger +had anticipated in his own case, it procured her no more than an +assurance from the nurse that Doctor Burns would see her in due course. +Since he wanted the coast clear the stranger, when at last his turn +arrived, politely waived his rights, sent the furs and violets in before +him, and sat alone with the nurse in the cleared waiting room. + +A comparatively short period of time elapsed before the consulting-room +door opened once more. But it closed again--almost--and a few words +reached the outer room. + +"Oh, but you're hard--hard, Doctor Burns! I simply can't do it," said a +plaintive voice. + +"Then don't expect me to accomplish anything. It's up to +you--absolutely," replied a brusque voice, which then softened slightly +as it added: "Cheer up. You can, you know. Good-bye." + +The patient came out, her lips set, her eyes lowered, and left the +office as if she wanted nothing so much as to get away. The nurse rose +and began to say that Doctor Burns would now see his one remaining +caller, but at that moment Doctor Burns himself appeared in the doorway, +glanced at the stranger, who had risen, smiling--and the need for an +intermediary between physician and patient vanished before the onslaught +of the physician himself. + +"My word! Gardner Coolidge! Well, well--if this isn't the greatest thing +on earth. My dear fellow!" + +The stranger, no longer a stranger, with his hand being wrung like +that, with his eyes being looked into by a pair of glowing hazel eyes +beneath a heavy thatch of well-remembered coppery hair, returned this +demonstration of affection with equal fervour. + +"I've been sitting in your stuffy waiting room, Red, till the entire +population of this town should tell you its aches, just for the pleasure +of seeing you with the professional manner off." + +Burns threw back his head and laughed, with a gesture as of flinging +something aside. "It's off then, Cooly--if I have one. I didn't know I +had. How are you? Man, but it's good to see you! Come along out of this +into a place that's not stuffy. Where's your bag? You didn't leave it +anywhere?" + +"I can't stay, Red--really I can't. Not this time. I must go to-night. +And I came to consult you professionally--so let's get that over first." + +"Of course. Just let me speak a word to the authorities. You'll at least +be here for dinner? Step into the next room, Cooly. On your way let me +present you to my assistant, Miss Mathewson, whom I couldn't do without. +Mr. Coolidge, Miss Mathewson." + +Gardner Coolidge bowed to the office nurse, whom he had already +classified as a very attractively superior person and well worth a good +salary; then went on into the consulting room, where an open window had +freshened the small place beyond any possibility of its being called +stuffy. As he closed the window with a shiver and looked about him, +glancing into the white-tiled surgery beyond; he recognized the fact +that, though he might be in the workshop of a village practitioner, it +was a workshop which did not lack the tools of the workman thoroughly +abreast of the times. + +Burns came back, his face bright with pleasure in the unexpected +appearance of his friend. He stood looking across the small room at +Coolidge, as if he could get a better view of the whole man at a little +distance. The two men were a decided contrast to each other. Redfield +Pepper Burns, known to all his intimates, and to many more who would not +have ventured to call him by that title, as "Red Pepper Burns," on +account of the combination of red head, quick temper, and wit which were +his most distinguishing characteristics of body and mind, was a stalwart +fellow whose weight was effectually kept down by his activity. His white +linen office jacket was filled by powerful shoulders, and the perfectly +kept hands of the surgeon gave evidence, as such hands do, of their +delicacy of touch, in the very way in which Burns closed the door behind +him. + +Gardner Coolidge was of a different type altogether. As tall as Burns, +he looked taller because of his slender figure and the distinctive +outlines of his careful dress. His face was dark and rather thin, +showing sensitive lines about the eyes and mouth, and a tendency to +melancholy in the eyes themselves, even when lighted by a smile, as now. +He was manifestly the man of worldly experience, with fastidious tastes, +and presumably one who did not accept the rest of mankind as comrades +until proved and chosen. + +"So it's my services you want?" questioned Burns. "If that's the case, +then it's here you sit." + +"Face to the light, of course," objected Coolidge with a grimace. "I +wonder if you doctors know what a moral advantage as well as a physical +one that gives you." + +"Of course. The moral advantage is the one we need most. Anybody can see +when a skin is jaundiced; but only by virtue of that moral standpoint +can we detect the soul out of order. And that's the matter with you, +Cooly." + +"What!" Coolidge looked startled. "I knew you were a man who jumped to +conclusions in the old days--" + +"And acted on them, too," admitted Burns. "I should say I did. And got +myself into many a scrape thereby, of course. Well, I jump to +conclusions now, in just the same way, only perhaps with a bit more +understanding of the ground I jump on. However, tell me your symptoms +in orthodox style, please, then we'll have them out of the way." + +Coolidge related them somewhat reluctantly because, as he went on, he +was conscious that they did not appear to be of as great importance as +this visit to a physician seemed to indicate he thought them. The most +impressive was the fact that he was unable to get a thoroughly good +night's sleep except when physically exhausted, which in his present +manner of life he seldom was. When he had finished and looked around--he +had been gazing out of the window--he found himself, as he had known he +should, under the intent scrutiny of the eyes he was facing. + +"What did the last man give you for this insomnia?" was the abrupt +question. + +"How do you know I have been to a succession of men?" demanded Coolidge +with a touch of evident irritation. + +"Because you come to me. We don't look up old friends in the profession +until the strangers fail us," was the quick reply. + +"More hasty conclusions. Still, I'll have to admit that I let our family +physician look me over, and that he suggested my seeing a nerve +man--Allbright. He has rather a name, I believe?" + +"Sure thing. What did he recommend?" + +"A long sea voyage. I took it--having nothing else to do--and slept a +bit better while I was away. The minute I got back it was the old +story." + +"Nothing on your mind, I suppose?" suggested Burns. + +"I supposed you'd ask me that stock question. Why shouldn't there be +something on my mind? Is there anybody whose mind is free from a weight +of some sort?" demanded Gardner Coolidge. His thin face flushed a +little. + +"Nobody," admitted Burns promptly. "The question is whether the weight +on yours is one that's got to stay there or whether you may be rid of +it. Would you care to tell me anything about it? I'm a pretty old +friend, you know." + +Coolidge was silent for a full minute, then he spoke with evident +reluctance: "It won't do a particle of good to tell, but I suppose, if I +consult you, you have a right to know the facts. My wife--has gone back +to her father." + +"On a visit?" Burns inquired. + +Coolidge stared at him. "That's like you, Red," he said, irritation in +his voice again. "What's the use of being brutal?" + +"Has she been gone long enough for people to think it's anything more +than a visit?" + +"I suppose not. She's been gone two months. Her home is in California." + +"Then she can be gone three without anybody's thinking trouble. By the +end of that third month you can bring her home," said Burns comfortably. +He leaned back in his swivel-chair, and stared hard at the ceiling. + +Coolidge made an exclamation of displeasure and got to his feet. "If you +don't care to take me seriously--" he began. + +"I don't take any man seriously who I know cared as much for his wife +when he married her as you did for Miss Carrington--and whose wife was +as much in love with him as she was with you--when he comes to me and +talks about her having gone on a visit to her father. Visits are good +things; they make people appreciate each other." + +"You don't--or won't--understand." Coolidge evidently strove hard to +keep himself quiet. "We have come to a definite understanding that we +can't--get on together. She's not coming back. And I don't want her to." + +Burns lowered his gaze from the ceiling to his friend's face, and the +glance he now gave him was piercing. "Say that last again," he demanded. + +"I have some pride," replied the other haughtily, but his eyes would not +meet Burns's. + +"So I see. Pride is a good thing. So is love. Tell me you don't love her +and I'll--No, don't tell me that. I don't want to hear you perjure +yourself. And I shouldn't believe you. You may as well own up"--his +voice was gentle now--"that you're suffering--and not only with hurt +pride." There was silence for a little. Then Burns began again, in a +very low and quiet tone: "Have you anything against her, Cooly?" + +The man before him, who was still standing, turned upon him. "How can +you ask me such a question?" he said fiercely. + +"It's a question that has to be asked, just to get it out of the way. +Has she anything against you?" + +"For heaven's sake--no! You know us both." + +"I thought I did. Diagnosis, you know, is a series of eliminations. And +now I can eliminate pretty nearly everything from this case except a +certain phrase you used a few minutes ago. I'm inclined to think it's +the cause of the trouble." Coolidge looked his inquiry. "'_Having +nothing else to do._'" + +Coolidge shook his head. "You're mistaken there. I have plenty to do." + +"But nothing you couldn't be spared from--unless things have changed +since the days when we all envied you. You're still writing your name on +the backs of dividend drafts, I suppose?" + +"Red, you are something of a brute," said Coolidge, biting his lip. But +he had taken the chair again. + +"I know," admitted Red Pepper Burns. "I don't really mean to be, but the +only way I can find out the things I need to know is to ask straight +questions. I never could stand circumlocution. If you want that, Cooly; +if you want what are called 'tactful' methods, you'll have to go to some +other man. What I mean by asking you that one is to prove to you that +though you may have something to do, you have no job to work at. As it +happens you haven't even what most other rich men have, the trouble of +looking after your income--and as long as your father lives you won't +have it. I understand that; he won't let you. But there's a man with a +job--your father. And he likes it so well he won't share it with you. It +isn't the money he values, it's the job. And collecting books or curios +or coins can never be made to take the place of good, downright hard +work." + +"That may be all true," acknowledged Coolidge, "but it has nothing to do +with my present trouble. My leisure was not what--" He paused, as if he +could not bear to discuss the subject of his marital unhappiness. + +The telephone bell in the outer office rang sharply. An instant later +Miss Mathewson knocked, and gave a message to Burns. He read it, +nodded, said "Right away," and turned back to his friend. + +"I have to leave you for a bit," he said. "Come in and meet my wife and +one of the kiddies. The other's away just now. I'll be back in time for +dinner. Meanwhile, we'll let the finish of this talk wait over for an +hour or two. I want to think about it." + +He exchanged his white linen office-jacket for a street coat, splashing +about with soap and water just out of sight for a little while before he +did so, and reappeared looking as if he had washed away the fatigue of +his afternoon's work with the physical process. He led Gardner Coolidge +out of the offices into a wide separating hall, and the moment the door +closed behind him the visitor felt as if he had entered a different +world. + +Could this part of the house, he thought, as Burns ushered him into the +living room on the other side of the hall and left him there while he +went to seek his wife, possibly be contained within the old brick walls +of the exterior? He had not dreamed of finding such refinement of beauty +and charm in connection with the office of the village doctor. In half a +dozen glances to right and left Gardner Coolidge, experienced in +appraising the belongings of the rich and travelled of superior taste +and breeding, admitted to himself that the genius of the place must be +such a woman as he would not have imagined Redfield Pepper Burns able +to marry. + +He had not long to wait for the confirmation of his insight. Burns +shortly returned, a two-year-old boy on his shoulder, his wife +following, drawn along by the child's hand. Coolidge looked, and liked +that which he saw. And he understood, with one glance into the dark eyes +which met his, one look at the firm sweetness of the lovely mouth, that +the heart of the husband must safely trust in this woman. + +Burns went away at once, leaving Coolidge in the company of Ellen, and +the guest, eager though he was for the professional advice he had come +to seek, could not regret the necessity which gave him this hour with a +woman who seemed to him very unusual. Charm she possessed in full +measure, beauty in no less, but neither of these terms nor both together +could wholly describe Ellen Burns. There was something about her which +seemed to glow, so that he soon felt that her presence in the quietly +rich and restful living room completed its furnishing, and that once +having seen her there the place could never be quite at its best without +her. + +Burns came back, and the three went out to dinner. The small boy, a +handsome, auburn-haired, brown-eyed composite of his parents, had been +sent away, the embraces of both father and mother consoling him for his +banishment to the arms of a coloured mammy. Coolidge thoroughly enjoyed +the simple but appetizing dinner, of the sort he had known he should +have as soon as he had met the mistress of the house. And after it he +was borne away by Burns to the office. + +"I have to go out again at once," the physician announced. "I'm going to +take you with me. I suppose you have a distaste for the sight of +illness, but that doesn't matter seriously. I want you to see this +patient of mine." + +"Thank you, but I don't believe that's necessary," responded Coolidge +with a frown. "If Mrs. Burns is too busy to keep me company I'll sit +here and read while you're out." + +"No, you won't. If you consult a man you're bound to take his +prescriptions. I'm telling you frankly, for you'd see through me if I +pretended to take you out for a walk and then pulled you into a house. +Be a sport, Cooly." + +"Very well," replied the other man, suppressing his irritation. He was +almost, but not quite, wishing he had not yielded to the unexplainable +impulse which had brought him here to see a man who, as he should have +known from past experience in college days, was as sure to be eccentric +in his methods of practising his profession as he had been in the +conduct of his life as a student. + +The two went out into the winter night together, Coolidge remarking that +the call must be a brief one, for his train would leave in a little more +than an hour. + +"It'll be brief," Burns promised. "It's practically a friendly call +only, for there's nothing more I can do for the patient--except to see +him on his way." + +Coolidge looked more than ever reluctant. "I hope he's not just leaving +the world?" + +"What if he were--would that frighten you? Don't be worried; he'll not +go to-night." + +Something in Burns's tone closed his companion's lips. Coolidge resented +it, and at the same time he felt constrained to let the other have his +way. And after all there proved to be nothing in the sight he presently +found himself witnessing to shock the most delicate sensibilities. + +It was a little house to which Burns conducted his friend and latest +patient; it was a low-ceiled, homely room, warm with lamplight and +comfortable with the accumulations of a lifetime carefully preserved. In +the worn, old, red-cushioned armchair by a glowing stove sat an aged +figure of a certain dignity and attractiveness in spite of the lines and +hues plainly showing serious illness. The man was a man of education +and experience, as was evident from his first words in response to +Burns's greeting. + +"It was kind of you to come again to-night, Doctor. I suspect you know +how it shortens the nights to have this visit from you in the evening." + +"Of course I know," Burns responded, his hand resting gently on the +frail shoulder, his voice as tender as that of a son's to a father whom +he knows he is not long to see. + +There was a woman in the room, an old woman with a pathetic face and +eyes like a mourning dog's as they rested on her husband. But her voice +was cheerful and full of quiet courage as she answered Burns's +questions. The pair received Gardner Coolidge as simply as if they were +accustomed to meet strangers every day, spoke with him a little, and +showed him the courtesy of genuine interest when he tried to entertain +them with a brief account of an incident which had happened on his train +that day. Altogether, there was nothing about the visit which he could +have characterized as painful from the point of view of the layman who +accompanies the physician to a room where it is clear that the great +transition is soon to take place. And yet there was everything about it +to make it painful--acutely painful--to any man whose discernment was +naturally as keen as Coolidge's. + +That the parting so near at hand was to be one between lovers of long +standing could be read in every word and glance the two gave each other. +That they were making the most of these last days was equally apparent, +though not a word was said to suggest it. And that the man who was +conducting them through the fast-diminishing time was dear to them as a +son could have been read by the very blind. + +"It's so good of you--so good of you, Doctor," they said again as Burns +rose to go, and when he responded: "It's good to myself I am, my dears, +when I come to look at you," the smiles they gave him and each other +were very eloquent. + +Outside there was silence between the two men for a little as they +walked briskly along, then Coolidge said reluctantly: "Of course I +should have a heart of stone if I were not touched by that scene--as you +knew I would be." + +"Yes, I knew," said Burns simply; and Coolidge saw him lift his hand and +dash away a tear. "It gets me, twice a day regularly, just as if I +hadn't seen it before. And when I go back and look at the woman I love I +say to myself that I'll never let anything but the last enemy come +between us if I have to crawl on my knees before her." + +Suddenly Coolidge's throat contracted. His resentment against his friend +was gone. Surely it was a wise physician who had given him that +heartbreaking little scene to remember when he should be tempted to +harden his heart against the woman he had chosen. + +"Red," he said bye and bye, when the two were alone together for a few +minutes again in the consulting room before he should leave for his +train, "is that all the prescription you're going to give me--a trip to +California? Suppose I'm not successful?" + +Red Pepper Burns smiled, a curious little smile. "You've forgotten what +I told you about the way my old man and woman made a home together,' and +worked at their market gardening together, and read and studied +together--did everything from first to last _together_. That's the whole +force of the illustration, to my mind, Cooly. It's the standing shoulder +to shoulder to face life that does the thing. Whatever plan you make for +your after life, when you bring Alicia back with you--as you will; I +know it--make it a plan which means partnership--if you have to build a +cottage down on the edge of your estate and live alone there together. +Alone till the children come to keep you company," he added with a +sudden flashing smile. + +Coolidge looked at him and shook his head. His face dropped back into +melancholy. He opened his lips and closed them again. Red Pepper Burns +opened his own lips--and closed them again. When he did speak it was to +say, more gently than he had yet spoken: + +"Old fellow, life isn't in ruins before you. Make up your mind to that. +You'll sleep again, and laugh again--and cry again, too,--because life +is like that, and you wouldn't want it any other way." + +It was time for Coolidge to go, and the two men went in to permit the +guest to take leave of Mrs. Burns. When they left the house Coolidge +told his friend briefly what he thought of his friend's wife, and Burns +smiled in the darkness as he heard. + +"She affects most people that way," he answered with a proud little ring +in his voice. But he did not go on to talk about her; that would have +been brutal indeed in Coolidge's unhappy circumstances. + +At the train Coolidge turned suddenly to his physician. "You haven't +given me anything for my sleeplessness," he said. + +"Think you must have a prescription?" Burns inquired, getting out his +blank and pen. + +"It will take some time for your advice to work out, if it ever does," +Coolidge said. "Meanwhile, the more good sleep I get the fitter I shall +be for the effort." + +"True enough. All right, you shall have the prescription." + +Burns wrote rapidly, resting the small leather-bound book on his knee, +his foot on an iron rail of the fence which kept passengers from +crowding. He read over what he had written, his face sober, his eyes +intent. He scrawled a nearly indecipherable "_Burns_" at the bottom, +folded the slip and handed it to his friend. "Put it away till you're +ready to get it filled," he advised. + +The two shook hands, gripping tightly and looking straight into each +other's eyes. + +"Thank you, Red, for it all," said Gardner Coolidge. "There have been +minutes when I felt differently, but I understand you better now. And I +see why your waiting room is full of patients even on a stormy day." + +"No, you don't," denied Red Pepper Burns stoutly. "If you saw me take +their heads off you'd wonder that they ever came again. Plenty of them +don't--and I don't blame them--when I've cooled off." + +Coolidge smiled. "You never lie awake thinking over what you've said or +done, do you, Red? Bygones are bygones with a man like you. You couldn't +do your work if they weren't!" + +A peculiar look leaped into Burns's eyes. "That's what the outsiders +always think," he answered briefly. + +"Isn't it true?" + +"You may as well go on thinking it is--and so may the rest. What's the +use of explaining oneself, or trying to? Better to go on looking +unsympathetic--and suffering, sometimes, more than all one's patients +put together!" + +Coolidge stared at the other man. His face showed suddenly certain grim +lines which Coolidge had not noticed there before--lines written by +endurance, nothing less. But even as the patient looked the physician's +expression changed again. His sternly set lips relaxed into a smile, he +pointed to a motioning porter. + +"Time to be off, Cooly," he said. "Mind you let me know how--you are. +Good luck--the best of it!" + + * * * * * + +In the train Coolidge had no sooner settled himself than he read Burns's +prescription. He had a feeling that it would be different from other +prescriptions, and so it proved: + + Rx + + Walk five miles every evening. + + Drink no sort of stimulant, except one cup of coffee at + breakfast. + + Begin to make plans for the cottage. Don't let it turn out a + palace. + + Ask the good Lord every night to keep you from being a proud + fool. + + BURNS. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +LITTLE HUNGARY + + +"Not hungry, Red? After all that cold drive to-day? Would you like to +have Cynthia make you something special, dear?" + +R.P. Burns, M.D., shook his head. "No, thanks." He straightened in his +chair, where he sat at the dinner table opposite his wife. He took up +his knife and fork again and ate valiantly a mouthful or two of the +tempting food upon his plate, then he laid the implements down +decisively. He put his elbow on the table and leaned his head upon his +hand. "I'm just too blamed tired to eat, that's all," he said. + +"Then don't try. I'm quite through, too. Come in the living room and lie +down a little. It's such a stormy night there may be nobody in." + +Ellen slipped her hand through his arm and led the way to the big blue +couch facing the fireplace. He dropped upon it with a sigh of fatigue. +His wife sat down beside him and began to pass her fingers lightly +through his heavy hair, with the touch which usually soothed him into +slumber if no interruptions came to summon him. But to-night her +ministrations seemed to have little effect, for he lay staring at a +certain picture on the wall with eyes which evidently saw beyond it into +some trying memory. + +"Is the whole world lying heavy on your shoulders to-night, Red?" Ellen +asked presently, knowing that sometimes speech proved a relief from +thought. + +He nodded. "The whole world--millions of tons of it. It's just because +I'm tired. There's no real reason why I should take this day's work +harder than usual--except that I lost the Anderson case this morning. +Poor start for the day, eh?" + +"But you knew you must lose it. Nobody could have saved that poor +creature." + +"I suppose not. But I wanted to save him just the same. You see, he +particularly wanted to live, and he had pinned his whole faith to me. He +wouldn't give it up that I could do the miracle. It hurts to disappoint +a faith like that." + +"Of course it does," she said gently. "But you must try to forget now, +Red, because of to-morrow. There will be people to-morrow who need you +as much as he did." + +"That's just what I'd like to forget," he murmured. "Everything's gone +wrong to-day--it'll go worse to-morrow." + +She knew it was small use to try to combat this mood, so unlike his +usual optimism, but frequent enough of occurrence to make her understand +that there is no depression like that of the habitually buoyant, once it +takes firm hold. She left him presently and went to sit by the reading +lamp, looking through current magazines in hope of finding some article +sufficiently attractive to capture his interest, and divert his heavy +thoughts. His eyes rested absently on her as she sat there, a charming, +comradely figure in her simple home dinner attire, with the light on her +dark hair and the exquisite curve of her cheek. + +It was a fireside scene of alluring comfort, the two central figures of +such opposite characteristics, yet so congenial. The night outside was +very cold, the wind blowing stormily in great gusts which now and then +howled down the chimney, making the warmth and cheer within all the more +appealing. + +Suddenly Ellen, hunting vainly for the page she sought, lifted her head, +to see her husband lift his at the same instant. + +"Music?" she questioned. "Where can it come from? Not outside on such a +night as this?" + +"Did you hear it, too? I've been thinking it my imagination." + +"It must be the wind, but--no, it _is_ music!" + +She rose and went to the window, pushing aside draperies and setting her +face to the frosty pane. The next instant she called in a startled way: + +"Oh, Red--come here!" + +He came slowly, but the moment he caught sight of the figure in the +storm outside his langour vanished. + +"Good heavens! The poor beggar! We must have him in." + +He ran to the hall and the outer door, and Ellen heard his shout above +the howling of the wind. + +"Come in--come in!" + +She reached the door into the hall as the slender young figure stumbled +up the steps, a violin clutched tight in fingers purple with cold. She +saw the stiff lips break into a frozen smile as her husband laid his +hand upon the thinly clad shoulder and drew the youth where he could +close the door. + +"Why didn't you come to the door and ring, instead of fiddling out there +in the cold!" demanded Burns. "Do you think we're heathen, to shut +anybody out on a night like this?" + +The boy shook his head. He was a boy in size, though the maturity of his +thin face suggested that he was at least nineteen or twenty years old. +His dark eyes gleamed out of hollow sockets, and his black hair, +curling thickly, was rough with neglect. But he had snatched off his +ragged soft hat even before he was inside the door, and for all the +stiffness of his chilled limbs his attitude, as he stood before his +hosts, had the unconscious grace of the foreigner. + +"Where do you come from?" Burns asked. + +Again the stranger shook his head. + +"He can't speak English," said Ellen. + +"Probably not--though he may be bluffing. We must warm and feed him, +anyhow. Will you have him in here, or shall I take him in the office?" + +Ellen glanced again at the shivering youth, noted that the purple hands +were clean, even to the nails, and led the way unhesitatingly into the +living room with all its beckoning warmth and beauty. + +"Good little sport--I knew you would," murmured Burns, as he beckoned +the boy after him. + +Ellen left the two alone together by the fire, while she went to prepare +a tray with Cynthia in the kitchen, filling it with the hearty food +Burns himself had left untouched. Big slices of juicy roast beef, two +hurriedly warmed sweet potatoes which had been browned in syrup in the +Southern style, crisp buttered rolls, and a pot of steaming coffee were +on the large tray which Cynthia insisted on carrying to the living-room +door for her mistress. Burns, jumping up at sight of her, took the tray, +while Ellen cleared a small table, drew up a chair, and summoned the +young stranger. + +The low bow he made her before he took the chair proclaimed his +breeding, as well as the smile of joy which showed the flash of his even +white teeth in the firelight. He made a little gesture of gratitude +toward both Burns and Ellen, pressing his hands over his heart and then +extending them, the expression on his face touching in its starved +restraint. Then he fell upon the food, and even though he was plainly +ravenous he ate as manneredly as any gentleman. Only by the way he +finished each tiniest crumb could they know his extremity. + +"By Jove, that beats eating it myself, if I were hungry as a faster on +the third day!" Burns exclaimed, as he sat turned away from the +beneficiary, his eyes apparently upon the fire. Ellen, from behind the +boy, smiled at her husband, noting how completely his air of fatigue had +fallen from him. Often before she had observed how any call upon R.P. +Burns's sympathies rode down his own need of commiseration. + +"Hungarian, I think, don't you?" Burns remarked, as the meal was +finished, and the youth rose to bow his thanks once more. This time +there was a response. He nodded violently, smiling and throwing out his +hands. + +"_Ungahree_!" he said, and smiled and nodded again, and said again, +"_Ungahree_!" + +"He knows that word all right," said Burns, smiling back. "It's a land +of musicians. The fiddle's a good one, I'll wager." + +He glanced at it as he spoke, and the boy leaped for it, pressing it to +his breast. He began to tune it. + +"He thinks we want to be paid for his supper," Ellen exclaimed. "Can't +you make him understand we should like him to rest first?" + +"I'd only convey to him the idea that we didn't want to hear him play, +which would be a pity, for we do. If he's the musician he looks, by +those eyes and that mouth, we'll be more than paid. Go ahead, +Hungary--it'll make you happier than anything we could do for you." + +Clearly it would. Burns carried out the tray, and when he returned his +guest was standing upon the hearth rug facing Ellen, his bow uplifted. +He waited till Burns had thrown himself down on the couch again in a +sitting posture, both arms stretched along the back. Then he made his +graceful obeisance again, and drew the bow very slowly and softly over +the first string. And, at the very first note, the two who were watching +him knew what was to come. It was in every line of him, that promise. + +It might have been his gratitude that he was voicing, so touching were +the strains that followed that first note. The air was unfamiliar, but +it sounded like a folk song of his own country, and he put into it all +the poignant, peculiar melody of such a song. His tones were exquisite, +with the sure touch of the trained violinist inspired and supported by +the emotional understanding of the genuine musician. + +When he had finished he stood looking downward for a moment, then as +Burns said "Bravo!" he smiled as if he understood the word, and lifted +his instrument again to his shoulder. This time his bow descended upon +the strings with a full note of triumph, and he burst into the brilliant +performance of a great masterpiece, playing with a spirit and dash which +seemed to transform him. Often his lips parted to show his white teeth, +often he swung his whole body into the rhythm of his music, until he +seemed a very part of the splendid harmonies he made. His thin cheeks +flushed, his hollow eyes grew bright, he smiled, he frowned, he shook +his slender shoulders, he even took a stride to right or left as he +played on, as if the passion of his performance would not let him rest. + +His listeners watched him with sympathetic and comprehending interest. +Warmed and fed, his Latin nature leaping up from its deep depression to +the exaltation of the hour, the appeal he made to them was intensely +pathetic. Burns, even more ardently than his wife, responded to the +appeal. He no longer lounged among the pillows of the broad couch; he +sat erect, his eyes intent, his lips relaxed, his cares forgot. He was a +lover of music, as are many men of his profession, and he was more than +ordinarily susceptible to its influences. He drank in the tones of the +master, voiced by this devoted interpreter, like wine, and like wine +they brought the colour to his face also, and the light to his eyes. + +"Jove!" he murmured, as the last note died away, "he's a wonder. He must +be older than he looks. How he loves it! He's forgotten that he doesn't +know where he's to sleep to-night--but, by all that's fair, _we_ know, +eh?" + +Ellen smiled, with a look of assent. Her own heart was warmly touched. +There was a small bedroom upstairs, plainly but comfortably furnished, +which was often used for impecunious patients who needed to remain under +observation for a day or two. It was at the service of any chance guest, +and the chance guest was surely with them to-night. There was no place +in the village to which such a vagrant as this might be sent, except +the jail, and the jail, for a musician of such quality, was unthinkable. +And in the night and storm one would not turn a dog outdoors to hunt for +shelter--at least not Red Pepper Burns nor Ellen Burns, his wife. + +As if he could not stop, now that he had found ears to listen, the young +Hungarian played on. More and more profoundly did his music move him, +until it seemed as if he had become the very spirit of the instrument +which sung and vibrated under his thin fingers. + +"My word, Len, this is too good to keep all to ourselves. Let's have the +Macauleys and Chesters over. Then we'll have an excuse for paying the +chap a good sum for his work--and somehow I feel that we need an excuse +for such a gentleman as he is." + +"That's just the thing. I'll ask them." + +She was on her way to the telephone when her husband suddenly called +after her, "Wait a minute, Len." She turned back, to see the musician, +his bow faltering, suddenly lower his violin and lean against his +patron, who had leaped to his support. A minute later Burns had him +stretched upon the blue couch, and had laid his fingers on the bony +wrist. + +"Hang me for a simpleton, to feed him like that he's probably not tasted +solid food for days. The reaction is too much, of course. He's been +playing on his nerve for the last ten minutes, and I, like an idiot, +thought it was his emotional temperament." + +He ran out of the room and returned with a wine glass filled with +liquid, which he administered, his arm under the ragged shoulders. Then +he patted the wasted cheek, gone suddenly white except where the excited +colour still showed in faint patches. + +"You'll be all right, son," he said, smiling down into the frightened +eyes, and his tone if not his words seemed to carry reassurance, for the +eyes closed with a weary flutter and the gripping fingers relaxed. + +"He's completely done," Burns said pityingly. He took one hand in his +own and held it in his warm grasp, at which the white lids unclosed +again, and the sensitive lips tried to smile. + +"I'd no business to let him play so long--I might have known. Poor boy, +he's starved for other things than food. Do you suppose anybody's held +his hand like this since he left the old country? He thought he'd find +wealth and fame in the new one--and this is what he found!" + +Ellen stood looking at the pair--her brawny husband, himself "completely +done" an hour before, now sitting on the edge of the couch with his new +patient's hand in his, his face wearing an expression of keen interest, +not a sign of fatigue in his manner; the exhausted young foreigner in +his ragged clothing lying on the luxurious couch, his pale face standing +out like a fine cameo against the blue velvet of the pillow under his +dark head. If a thought of possible contamination for her home's +belongings entered her mind it found no lodgment there, so pitiful was +her heart. + +"Is the room ready upstairs?" Burns asked presently, when he had again +noted the feeble action of the pulse under his fingers. "What he needs +is rest and sleep, and plenty of both. Like the most of us he's kept up +while he had to, and now he's gone to pieces absolutely. To-morrow we +can send him to the hospital, perhaps, but for to-night--" + +"The room is ready. I sent Cynthia up at once." + +"Bless you, you never fail me, do you? Well--we may as well be on our +way. He's nearly asleep now." + +Burns stood up, throwing off his coat. But Ellen remonstrated. + +"Dear, you are so tired to-night. Let me call Jim over to help you carry +him up." + +A derisive laugh answered her. "Great Cæsar, Len! The chap's a mere bag +of bones--and if he were twice as heavy he'd be no weight for me. Jim +Macauley would howl at the idea, and no wonder. Go ahead and open the +doors, please, and I'll have him up in a jiffy." + +He stooped over the couch, swung the slender figure up into his powerful +arms, speaking reassuringly to the eyes which slowly opened in +half-stupefied alarm. "It's all right, little Hungary. We're going to +put you to bed, like the small lost boy you are. Bring his fiddle, +Len--he won't want that out of his sight." + +He strode away with his burden, and marched up the stairs as if he were +carrying his own two-year-old son. Arrived in the small, comfortable +little room at the back of the house he laid his charge on the bed, and +stood looking down at him. + +"Len, I'll have to go the whole figure," he said--and said it not as if +the task he was about to impose upon himself were one that irked him. +"Get me hot water and soap and towels, will you? And an old pair of +pajamas. I can't put him to bed in his rags." + +"Shall I send for Amy?" questioned his wife, quite as if she understood +the uselessness of remonstrance. + +"Not much. Amy's making out bills for me to-night, we'll not interrupt +the good work. Put some bath-ammonia in the water, please--and have it +hot." + +Half an hour later he called her in to see the work of his hands. She +had brought him one of his surgical aprons with the bath equipment. With +his sleeves rolled up, his apron well splashed, his coppery hair more or +less in disarray from the occasional thrustings of a soapy hand, and his +face flushed and eager like a healthy boy's, Red Pepper Burns stood +grinning down at his patient. Little Hungary lay in the clean white bed, +his pale face shining with soap and happiness, his arms upon the +coverlet encased in the blue and white sleeves of Burns's pajamas, the +sleeves neatly turned back to accommodate the shortness of his arms. The +workman turned to Ellen as she came in. + +"Comfy, eh?" he observed briefly. + +"Absolutely, I should say, poor dear." + +"Ah, you wouldn't have called him that before the bath. But he is rather +a dear now, isn't he? And I think he's younger than I did downstairs. +Not over eighteen, at the most, but fully forty in the experiences and +hardships that have brought him here. Well, we'll go away and let him +rest. Wish I knew the Hungarian for 'good-night,' don't you? Anyway, if +he knows any prayers he'll say 'em, I'll venture." + +The dark eyes were watching him intently as he spoke, as if their owner +longed to know what this kind angel in the form of a big American +stranger was saying to him. And when, in leaving him, Burns once more +laid an exploring touch upon his wrist, the two thin hands suddenly +clutched the strong one and bore it weakly to lips which kissed it +fervently. + +"Well, that's rather an eloquent thank-you, eh?" murmured Burns, as he +patted the hands in reply. "No doubt but he's grateful. Put the fiddle +where he can see it in the morning, will you, honey? Open the window +pretty well: I've covered him thoroughly, and he has a touch of fever to +keep him warm. Good-night, little Hungary. Luck's with you to-night, to +get into this lady's house." + +Downstairs by the fireside once more, the signs of his late occupation +removed, Burns stretched out an arm for his wife. + +"Come sit beside me in the Retreat," he invited, using the name he had +long ago given to the luxurious blue couch where he was accustomed, +since his marriage, to rest and often to catch a needed nap. He drew the +winsome figure close within his arm, resting his red head against the +dark one below it. "I don't seem to feel particularly tired, now," he +observed. "Curious, isn't it? Fatigue, as I've often noticed, is more +mental than physical--with most of us. Your ditch-digger is tired in his +back and arms, but the ordinary person is merely tired because his mind +tells him he is." + +"You are never too tired to rouse yourself for one patient more," was +Ellen's answer to this. "The last one seems to cure you of the one +before." + +Burns's hearty laugh shook them both. "You can't make me out such an +enthusiast in my profession as that. I turned away two country calls +to-night--too lazy to make 'em." + +"But you would have gone if they couldn't have found anybody else." + +"That goes without saying--no merit in that. The ethics of the +profession have to be lived up to, curse 'em as we may, at times. Len, +how are we to get to know something about little Hungary upstairs? Those +eyes of his are going to follow me into my dreams to-night." + +"I suppose there are Hungarians in town?" + +"Not a one that I ever heard of. Plenty in the city, though. The waiter +at the Arcadia, where I get lunch when I'm at the hospital, is a Magyar. +By Jove, there's an idea! I'll bring Louis out, if Hungary can't get +into the hospital to-morrow--and I warn you he probably can't. I +shouldn't want him to take a twelve-mile ambulance ride in this weather. +That touch of fever may mean simple exhaustion, and it may mean look out +for pneumonia, after all the exposure he's had. I'd give something to +know how it came into his crazy head to stand and fiddle outside a +private house in a January storm. Why didn't he try a cigar shop or some +other warm spot where he could pass the hat? That's what Louis must find +out for me, eh? Len, that was great music of his, wasn't it? The fellow +ought to have a job in a hotel orchestra. Louis and I between us might +get him one." + +Burns went to bed still working on this problem, and Ellen rejoiced that +it had superseded the anxieties of the past day. Next morning he was +early at the little foreigner's bedside, to find him resting quietly, +the fever gone, and only the intense fatigue remaining, the cure for +which was simply rest and food. + +"Shall we let him stay till he's fit?" Burns asked his wife. + +"Of course. Both Cynthia and Amy are much interested, and between them +he will have all he needs." + +"And I'll bring Louis out, if I have to pay for a waiter to take his +place," promised Burns. + +He was as good as his word. When he returned that afternoon from the +daily visit to the city hospital, where he had always many patients, he +brought with him in the powerful roadster which he drove himself a +dark-faced, pointed moustached countryman of little Hungary, who spoke +tolerable English, and was much pleased and flattered to be of service +to the big doctor whom he was accustomed to serve in his best manner. + +Taken to the bedside, Louis gazed down at its occupant with +condescending but comprehending eyes, and spoke a few words which caused +the thin face on the pillow to break into smiles of delight, as the +eager lips answered in the same tongue. Question and answer followed in +quick succession and Louis was soon able to put Burns in possession of a +few significant facts. + +"He say he come to dis countree October. Try find work New York--no +good. He start to valk to countree, find vork farm. Bad time. Seeck, +cold, hungree. Fear he spoil hands for veolinn--dat's vhy he not take +vork on road, vat he could get. He museecian--good one." + +"Does he say that?" Burns asked, amused. + +Louis nodded. "Many museecians in Hungary. Franz come from Budapest. No +poor museecians dere. Budapest great ceety--better Vienna, Berlin, +Leipsic--oh, yes! See, I ask heem." + +He spoke to the boy again, evidently putting a meaning question, for +again the other responded with ardour, using his hands to emphasize his +assertion--for assertion it plainly was. + +Louis laughed. "He say ze countree of Franz Liszt know no poor museeck. +He named for Franz Liszt. He play beeg museeck for you and ze ladee +last night. So?" + +"He did--and took us off our feet. Tell him, will you?" + +"He no un'erstand," laughed Louis, "eef I tell him 'off de feet.'" + +"That's so--no American idioms yet for him, eh? Well, say he made us +very happy with his wonderful music. I'll wager that will get over to +him." + +Plainly it did, to judge by the eloquence of Franz's eyes and his joyous +smile. With quick speech he responded. + +"He say," reported Louis, "he vant to vork for you. No wagees till he +plees you. He do anyting. You van' heem?" + +"Well, I'll have to think about that," Burns temporized. "But tell him +not to worry. We'll find a job before we let him go. He ought to play in +a restaurant or theatre, oughtn't he, Louis?" + +Louis shook his head. "More men nor places," he said. "But ve see--ve +see." + +"All right. Now ask him how he came to stand in front of my house in the +storm and fiddle." + +To this Louis obtained a long reply, at which he first shook his head, +then nodded and laughed, with a rejoinder which brought a sudden rush of +tears to the black eyes below. Louis turned to Burns. + +"He say man lead heem here, make heem stand by window, make sign to +heem to play. I tell heem man knew soft heart eenside." + +To the edge of his coppery hair the blood rushed into the face of Red +Pepper Burns. Whether he would be angry or amused was for the moment an +even chance, as Ellen, watching him, understood. Then he shook his fist +with a laugh. + +"Just wait till I catch that fellow!" he threatened. "A nice way out of +his own obligations to a starving fellow man." + +He sent Louis back to town on the electric car line, with a round fee in +his pocket, and the instruction to leave no stone unturned to find Franz +work for his violin, himself promising to aid him in any plan he might +formulate. + +In three days the young Hungarian was so far himself that Burns had him +downstairs to sit by the office fire, and a day more put him quite on +his feet. Careful search had discovered a temporary place for him in a +small hotel orchestra, whose second violin was ill, and Burns agreed to +take him into the city. The evening before he was to go, Ellen invited a +number of her friends and neighbours in to hear Franz play. + +Dressed in a well-fitting suit of blue serge Franz looked a new being. +The suit had been contributed by Arthur Chester, Burns's neighbour and +good friend next door upon the right, and various other accessories had +been supplied by James Macauley, also Burns's neighbour and good friend +next door upon the left and the husband of Martha Macauley, Ellen's +sister. Even so soon the rest and good food had filled out the deepest +hollows in the emaciated cheeks, and happiness had lighted the sombre +eyes. Those eyes followed Burns about with the adoring gaze of a +faithful dog. + +"It's evident you've attached one more devoted follower to your train, +Red," whispered Winifred Chester, in an interval of the violin playing. + +"Well, he's a devotee worth having," answered Burns, watching his +protégé as Franz looked over a pile of music with Ellen, signifying his +pleasure every time they came upon familiar sheets. The two had found +common ground in their love of the most emotional of all the arts, and +Ellen had discovered rare delight in accompanying that ardent violin in +some of the scores both knew and loved. + +"He's as handsome as a picture to-night, isn't he?" Winifred pursued. +"How Arthur's old blue suit transforms him. And wasn't it clever of +Ellen to have him wear that soft white shirt with the rolling collar and +flowing black tie? It gives him the real musician's look." + +"Trust you women to work for dramatic effects," murmured Burns. "Here we +go--and I'll wager it'll be something particularly telling, judging by +the way they both look keyed up to it. Ellen plays like a virtuoso +herself to-night, doesn't she?" + +"It's enough to inspire any one to have that fiddle at her shoulder," +remarked James Macauley, who, hanging over the couch, had been listening +to this bit of talk. + +The performance which followed captured them all, even practical and +energetic Martha Macauley, who had often avowed that she considered the +study of music a waste of time in a busy world. + +"Though I think, after all," she observed to Arthur Chester, who lounged +by her side, revelling in the entertainment with the zest of the man who +would give his whole time to affairs like these if it were not necessary +for him to make a living at the practice of some more prosaic +profession, "it's quite as much the interest of having such a stagey +character performing for us as it is his music. Did you ever see any +human being throw his whole soul into anything like that? One couldn't +help but watch him if he weren't making a sound." + +"It's certainly refreshing, in a world where we all try to cover up our +real feelings, to see anybody give himself away so naïvely as that," +Chester replied. "But there's no doubt about the quality of his music. +He was born, not made. And, by George, Len certainly plays up to him. I +didn't know she had it in her, for all I've been admiring her +accomplishments for four years." + +"Ellen's all temperament, anyway," said Ellen's sister. + +Chester looked at her curiously. Martha was a fine-looking young woman, +in a very wholesome and clean-cut fashion. There was no feminine +artfulness in the way she bound her hair smoothly upon her head, none in +the plain cut of her simple evening attire, absolutely none in her +manner. Glancing from Martha to her sister, as he had often done before +in wonderment at the contrast between them, he noted as usual how +exquisitely Ellen was dressed, though quite as simply, in a way, as her +practical sister. But in every line of her smoke-blue silken frock was +the most subtle art, as Chester, who had a keen eye for such matters and +a fastidious taste, could readily recognize. From the crown of her dark +head to the toe of the blue slipper with which she pressed the pedal of +the great piano which she had brought from her old home in the South, +she was a picture to feast one's eyes upon. + +"Give me temperament, then--and let some other fellow take the common +sense," mused Arthur Chester to himself. "Ellen has both, and Red's in +luck. It was a great day for him when the lovely young widow came his +way--and he knows it. What a home she makes him--what a home!" + +His eyes roved about the beautiful living room, as they had often done +before. His own home, next door, was comfortable and more than +ordinarily attractive, but he knew of no spot in the town which +possessed the subtle charm of this in which he sat. His wife, Winifred, +was always trying to reproduce within their walls the indefinable +quality which belonged to everything Ellen touched, and always saying in +despair, "It's no use--Ellen is Ellen, and other people can't be like +her." + +"Better let it go at that," her husband sometimes responded. "You're +good enough for me." Which was quite true, for Winifred Chester was a +peculiarly lovable young woman. He noted afresh to-night that beside +Martha Macauley's somewhat heavy good looks Winifred seemed a creature +of infinite and delightful variety. + +Perhaps the music had made them all more or less analytic, for in an +interval James Macauley, comfortably ensconced in a great winged chair +for which he was accustomed to steer upon entering this room, where he +was nearly as much at home as within his own walls, remarked, "What is +there about music like that that sets you to thinking everybody in sight +is about the best ever?" + +"Does it have that effect on you?" queried Burns, lazily, from the blue +couch. "That's a good thing for a fellow of a naturally critical +disposition." + +"Critical, am I? Why, within a week I paid you the greatest compliment +in my power." + +"Really!" + +"If it hadn't been for me this company would never have been gathered, +to listen to these wondrous strains." + +"How's that?" Burns turned on him a suddenly interested eye. + +"Oh, I'm not telling. It's enough that the thing came about." Macauley +looked around for general approbation. + +Red Pepper sat up. "It was you stood the poor beggar up under my window, +on that howling night, was it, Jim? I've been looking for the man that +did it." + +"Why," said Macauley comfortably, "the chap asked me to point him to a +doctor's office--said he had a bit of a cold. I said you were the one +and only great and original M.D. upon earth, and as luck would have it +he was almost at your door. I said that if he didn't find you in he +should come over to my house and we would fix him up with cough drops. +He thanked me and passed on. As luck would have it you were in." + +Red Pepper glared at him. A chuckle from Arthur Chester caused him to +turn his eyes that way. He scrutinized his guests in turn, and detected +signs of mirth. Winifred Chester's pretty shoulders were shaking. Martha +Macauley's lips were pressed close together. The others were all +smiling. + +Burns turned upon Winifred, who sat nearest. "Tell me the truth about +this thing," he commanded. + +She shook her head, but she got no peace until at length she gave him +the tale. + +"Arthur and I were over at Jim's. He came in and said a wager was up +among some men outside as to whether if that poor boy came and fiddled +under your window you'd take him in and keep him over night. Somebody'd +been saying things against you, down street somewhere--" she hesitated, +glancing at her husband, who nodded, and said, "Go on--he'll have it out +of us now, anyhow." + +"They said," she continued, "that you were the most brutal surgeon in +the State, and that you hadn't any heart. Some of them made this wager, +and they all sneaked up here behind the one that steered Franz to your +window." + +Burns's quick colour had leaped to his face at this recital, as they +were all accustomed to see it, but for an instant he made no reply. +Winifred looked at him steadily, as one who was not afraid. + +"We were all in a dark window watching. If you hadn't taken him in we +would. But--O Red! We knew--we knew that heart of yours." + +"And who started that wager business?" Burns inquired, in a muffled +voice. + +"Why, Jim, of course. Who else would take such a chance?" + +"Was it a serious wager?" + +"Of course it was." + +"Even odds?" + +"No, it was Jim against the crowd. And for a ridiculously high stake." + +Red Pepper glared at James Macauley once more. "You old pirate!" he +growled. "How dared you take such a chance on me? And when you know I'm +death on that gambling propensity of yours?" + +"I know you are," replied Macauley, with a satisfied grin. "And you know +perfectly well I haven't staked a red copper for a year. But that sort +of talk I overheard was too much for me. Besides, I ran no possible risk +for my money. I was betting on a sure thing." + +Burns got up, amidst the affectionate laughter which followed this +explanation, and walked over to where Franz stood, his eager eyes fixed +upon his new and adored friend, who, he somehow divined, was the target +for some sort of badinage. + +"Little Hungary," he said, smiling into the uplifted, boyish face, with +his hand on the slender shoulder, "it came out all right that time, but +don't you ever play under my window again in a January blizzard. If you +do, I'll kick you out into the storm!" + + + + +CHAPTER III + +ANNE LINTON'S TEMPERATURE + + +"Is Doctor Burns in?" + +"He's not in. He will be here from two till five this afternoon. Could +you come then?" Miss Mathewson regarded the young stranger at the door +with more than ordinary interest. The face which was lifted to her was +one of quite unusual beauty, with astonishing eyes under resolute dark +brows, though the hair which showed from under the small and +close-fitting hat of black was of a wonderful and contradictory colour. +It was almost the shade, it occurred to Amy Mathewson, of that which +thatched the head of Red Pepper Burns himself, but it was more +picturesque hair than his, finer of texture, with a hint of curl. The +mass of it which showed at the back as the stranger turned her head away +for a moment, evidently hesitating over her next course of action, had +in it tints of bronze which were more beautiful than Burns's coppery +hues. + +"Would you care to wait?" inquired Miss Mathewson, entirely against her +own principles. + +It was not quite one o'clock, and Burns always lunched in the city, +after his morning at the hospital, and reached home barely in time for +those afternoon village office hours which began at two. His assistant +did not as a rule encourage the arrival of patients in the office as +early as this, knowing that they were apt to become impatient and +aggrieved by their long wait. But something about the slightly drooping +figure of the girl before her, in her black clothes, with a small +handbag on her arm, and a look of appeal on her face, suggested to the +experienced nurse that here was a patient who must not be turned away. + +The girl looked up eagerly. "If I might," she said in a tone of relief. +"I really have nowhere to go until I have seen the Doctor." + +Miss Mathewson led her in and gave her the most comfortable chair in the +room, a big, half shabby leather armchair, near the fireplace and close +beside a broad table whereon the latest current magazines were arranged +in orderly piles. The girl sank into the chair as if its wide arms were +welcome after a weary morning. She looked up at Miss Mathewson with a +faint little smile. + +"I haven't been sitting much to-day," she said. + +"This first spring weather makes every one feel rather tired," replied +Amy, noting how heavy were the shadows under the brown eyes with their +almost black lashes--an unusual combination with the undeniably russet +hair. + +From her seat at the desk, where she was posting Burns's day book, the +nurse observed without seeming to do so that the slim figure in the old +armchair sat absolutely without moving, except once when the head +resting against the worn leather turned so that the cheek lay next it. +And after a very short time Miss Mathewson realized that the waiting +patient had fallen asleep. She studied her then, for something about the +young stranger had aroused her interest. + +The girl was obviously poor, for the black suit, though carefully +pressed, was of cheap material, the velvet on the small black hat had +been caught in more than one shower, and the black gloves had been many +times painstakingly mended. The small feet alone showed that their owner +had allowed herself one luxury, that of good shoes--and the daintiness +of those feet made a strong appeal to the observer. + +As for the face resting against the chair back, it was flushed after a +fashion which suggested illness rather than health, and Miss Mathewson +realized presently that the respiration of the sleeper was not quite +what it should be. Whether this were due to fatigue or coming illness +she could not tell. + +Half-past one! The first early caller was slowing a small motor at the +curb outside when Amy Mathewson gently touched the girl's arm. "Come +into the other room, please," she said. + +The brown eyes opened languidly. The black-gloved hand clutched at the +handbag, and the girl rose. "I'm so sorry," she murmured. "I don't know +how I came to go to sleep." + +"You were tired out. If I had known I should have brought you in here +before," Amy said, leading her into the consulting room. "It is still +half an hour before Doctor Burns will be in, and you must lie here on +his couch while you wait." + +"Oh, thank you, but I ought not to go to sleep. I--have you just a +minute to spare? I should like to show you a little book I am selling--" + +Miss Mathewson suffered a sudden revulsion of feeling. So this girl was +only a book agent. First on the list of what by two o'clock would be a +good-sized assemblage of waiting patients, she must not be allowed to +take Doctor Burns's time to exploit her wares. Yet, even as Amy +regretted having brought a book agent into this inner sanctum, the girl +looked up from searching in her handbag and seemed to recognize the +prejudice she had excited. + +"Oh, but I'm a patient, too," she said with a little smile. "I didn't +expect to take the Doctor's time telling him about the book. But you--I +thought you might be interested. It's a little book of bedtime stories +for children. They are very jolly little tales. Would you care to see +it?" + +Now Amy Mathewson was the fortunate or unfortunate--as you happen to +regard such things--possessor of a particularly warm heart, and the +result of this appeal was that she took the book away with her into the +outer office, promising to look it over if the seller of it would lie +down upon the couch and rest quietly. She was convinced that the girl +was much more than weary--she was very far from well. The revealing +light of that consulting room had struck upon the upturned face and had +shown Miss Mathewson's trained eyes certain signs which alarmed her. + +So it came about that Red Pepper Burns, coming in ruddy from his +twelve-mile dash home, and feeling particularly fit for the labours of +the afternoon in consequence of having found every hospital patient of +his own on the road to recovery--two of them having taken a +right-about-face from a condition which the day before had pointed +toward trouble--discovered his first office patient lying fast asleep +upon the consulting room couch. + +"She seemed so worn out I put her here," explained Miss Mathewson, +standing beside him. "She falls asleep the moment she is off her feet." + +"Hm--m," was his reply as he thrust his arms into his white +office-jacket. "Well, best wake her up, though it seems a pity. Looks as +if she'd been on a hunger strike, eh?" he added under his breath. + +Miss Mathewson had the girl awake again in a minute, and she sat up, an +expression of contrition crossing her face as she caught sight of the +big doctor at the other side of the room, his back toward her. When +Burns turned, at Amy's summons, he beheld the slim figure sitting +straight on the edge of the broad couch, the brown eyes fixed on him. + +"Tired out?" he asked pleasantly. "Take this chair, please, so I can see +all you have to tell me--and a few things you don't tell me." + +It did not take him long. His eyes on the face which was too flushed, +his fingers on the pulse which beat too fast, his thermometer +registering a temperature too high, all told him that here was work for +him. The questions he asked brought replies which confirmed his fears. +Nothing in his manner indicated, however, that he was doing considerable +quick thinking. His examination over, he sat back in his chair and began +a second series of questions, speaking in a more than ordinarily quiet +but cheerful way. + +"Will you tell me just a bit about your personal affairs?" he asked. "I +understand that you come from some distance. Have you a home and +family?" + +"No family--for the last two years, since my father died." + +"And no home?" + +"If I am ill, Doctor Burns, I will look after myself." + +He studied her. The brown eyes met the scrutinizing hazel ones without +flinching. Whether or not the spirit flinched he could not be sure. The +hazel eyes were very kindly. + +"You have relatives somewhere whom we might let know of this?" + +She shook her head determinedly. Her head lifted ever so little. + +"You are quite alone in the world?" + +"For all present purposes--yes, Doctor Burns." + +"I can't just believe," he said gently, "that it is not very important +to somebody to know if you are ill." + +"It is just my affair," she answered with equal courtesy of manner but +no less finally. "Believe me, please--and tell me what to do. Shall I +not be better to-morrow--or in a day or two?" + +He was silent for a moment. Then, "It is not a time for you to be +without friends," said Red Pepper Burns. "I will prove to you that you +have them at hand. After that you will find there are others. I am +going to take you to a pleasant place I know of, where you will have +nothing to do but to lie still and rest and get well. The best of nurses +will look after you. You will obey orders for a little--my orders, if +you want to trust me--" + +"Where is this place?" The question was a little breathless. + +"Where do you guess?" + +"In--a hospital?" + +"In one of the best in the world." + +"I am--pretty ill then?" + +"It's a bit of a wonder," said Burns in his quietest tone, "how you have +kept around these last four days. I wish you hadn't." + +"If I hadn't," said the girl rather faintly, "I shouldn't have been in +this town and I shouldn't have come to Doctor Burns. So--I'm glad I +did." + +"Good!" said Burns, smiling. "It's fine to start with the confidence of +one's patient. I'm glad you're going to trust me. Now we'll take you to +another room where you can lie down again till my office hours are over +and I can run into the city with you." + +He rose, beckoning. But his patient protested: "Please tell me how to +get there. I can go perfectly well. My head is better, I think." + +"That's lucky. But the first of my orders Miss Linton, is that you come +with me now." + +He summoned Miss Mathewson, gave her directions, and dismissed the two. +In ten minutes the heavy eyes were again closed, while their owner lay +motionless again upon a bed in an inner room which was often used for +such purposes. + +"I'm sorry I can't take her in now," Burns said to Amy presently in an +interval between patients. "I don't want to call the ambulance out here +for a walking case, and there's no need of startling her with it, +anyhow. I wish I had some way to send her." + +"Mr. Jordan King just came into the office. His car is outside. Couldn't +he take her in?" + +"Of course he could--and would, I've no doubt. He's only after his +mother's prescription. Send him in here next, will you, please?" + +To the tall, well-built, black-eyed young man who answered this summons +in some surprise at being admitted before his turn, Burns spoke crisply: + +"Here's the prescription, Jord, and you'll have to take it to Wood's to +get it filled. I hope it'll do your mother a lot of good, but I'm not +promising till I've tried it out pretty well. Now will you do me a +favour?" + +"Anything you like, Doctor." + +"Thanks. I'm sending a patient to the hospital--a stranger stranded here +ill. She ought not to be out of bed another hour, though she walked to +the office and would walk away again if I'd let her--which I won't. I +can't get off for three hours yet. Will you take her in to the Good +Samaritan for me? I'll telephone ahead, and some one will meet her at +the door. All right?" + +He looked up. Jordan King--young civil engineer of rising reputation in +spite of the family wealth which would have made him independent of his +own exertions, if he could possibly have been induced by an adoring, +widowed mother to remain under her wing--stood watching him with a smile +on his character-betraying lips. + +"You ought to have an executive position of some sort, Doctor Burns," he +observed, "you're so strong on orders. I've got mine. Where's the lady? +Do I have to be silent or talkative? Is she to have pillows? Am I to +help her out?" + +"She'll walk out--but that and the walk in will be the last she'll take +for some time. Talk as much as you like; it'll help her to forget that +she's alone in the world at present except for us. Go out to your car; +I'll send her out with Miss Mathewson." + +Burns turned to his desk, and King obediently went out. Five minutes +later, as he stood waiting beside his car, a fine but hard-used roadster +of impressive lines and plenty of power, the office nurse and her +patient emerged. King noted in some surprise the slender young figure, +the interest-compelling face with its too vivid colour in cheeks that +looked as if ordinarily they were white, the apparel which indicated +lack of means, though the bearing of the wearer unmistakably suggested +social training. + +"I thought she'd be an elderly one somehow," he said in congratulation +of himself. "Jolly, what hair! Poor little girl; she does look sick--but +plucky. Hope I can get her in all right." + +Outwardly he was the picture of respectful attention as Miss Mathewson +presented him, calling the girl "Miss Linton," and bidding him wrap her +warmly against the spring wind. + +"I'll take the best care of her I know," he promised with a friendly +smile. He tucked a warm rug around her, taking special pains with her +small feet, whose well-chosen covering he did not fail to note. "All +right?" he asked as he finished. + +"Very comfortable, thank you. It's ever so kind of you." + +"Glad to do anything for Doctor Burns," King responded, taking his place +beside her. "Now shall we go fast or slow?" + +"Just as you like, please. I don't feel very ill just now, and this air +is so good on my face." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +TWO RED HEADS + + +Jordan King set his own speed in the powerful roadster, reflecting that +Miss Linton, to judge from her worn black clothes, was probably not +accustomed to motoring and so making the pace a moderate one. Fast or +slow, it would not take long to cover the twelve miles over the +macadamized road to the hospital in the city, and if it was to be her +last bath in the good outdoors for some time, as the doctor had +said--King drew a long breath, filling his own sturdy lungs with the +balmy yet potent April air, feeling very sorry for the unknown little +person by his side. + +"Would you rather I didn't talk?" he inquired when a mile or two had +been covered in silence. + +She lifted her eyes to his, and for the first time he got a good look +into them. They were very wonderful eyes, and none the less wonderful +because of the fever which made them almost uncannily brilliant between +their dark lashes. + +"Oh, I wish you would talk, if you don't mind!" she answered--and he +noted as he had at first how warmly pleasant were the tones of her +voice, which was a bit deeper than one would have expected. "I've heard +nobody talk for days--except to say they didn't care to buy my book." + +"Your book? Have you written a book?" + +"I'm selling one." This astonished him, but he did not let it show. It +was certainly enough to make any girl ill to have to go about selling +books. He wondered how it happened. She opened her handbag and took out +the small book. "I don't want to sell you one," she said. "You wouldn't +have any use for it. It's a little set of stories for children." + +"But I do want to buy one," he protested. "I've a lot of nieces and +nephews always coming at me for stories." + +She shook her head. "You can't buy one. I'd like to give you one if you +would take it, to show you how I appreciate this beautiful drive." + +"Of course I'll take it," he said quickly, "and delighted at the +chance." He slipped the book into his pocket. "As for the drive, it's +much jollier not to be covering the ground alone. I wish, though--" and +he stopped, feeling that he was probably going to say the wrong thing. + +She seemed to know what it would have been. "You're sorry to be taking +me to the hospital?" she suggested. "You needn't be. I didn't want to +go, just at first, but then--I felt I could trust the Doctor. He was so +kind, and his hair was so like mine, he seemed like a sort of big older +brother." + +"Red Pepper Burns seems like that to a lot of people, including myself. +I don't look like much of a candidate for illness, but I've had an +accident or two, and he's pulled me through in great shape. You're right +in trusting him and you can keep right on, to the last ditch--" He +stopped short again, with an inward thrust at himself for being so +blundering in his suggestions to this girl, who, for all he knew, might +be on her way to that "last ditch" from which not even Burns could save +her. + +But the girl herself seemed to have paused at his first phrase. "What +did you call the Doctor?" she asked, turning her eyes upon him again. + +"What did I--oh! 'Red Pepper.' Yes--I've no business to call him that, +of course, and I don't to his face, though his friends who are a bit +older than I usually do, and people speak of him that way. It's his +hair, of course--and--well, he has rather a quick temper. People with +that coloured hair--But you're wrong in saying yours is like his," he +added quickly. + +For the first time he saw a smile touch her lips. "So he has a quick +temper," she mused. "I'm glad of that--I have one myself. It goes with +the hair surely enough." + +"It goes with some other things," ventured Jordan King, determined, if +he made any more mistakes, to make them on the side of encouragement. +"Pluck, and endurance, and keeping jolly when you don't feel so--if you +don't mind my saying it." + +"One has to have a few of those things to start out into the world +with," said Miss Linton slowly, looking straight ahead again. + +"One certainly does. Doctor Burns understands that as well as any man I +know. And he likes to find those things in other people." Then with +tales of some of the Doctor's experiences which young King had heard he +beguiled the way; and by the time he had told Miss Linton a story or two +about certain experiences of his own in the Rockies, the car was +approaching the city. Presently they were drawing up before the group of +wide-porched, long buildings, not unattractive in aspect, which formed +the hospital known as the Good Samaritan. + +"It's a pretty good place," announced King in a matter-of-fact way, +though inwardly he was suffering a decided pang of sympathy for the +young stranger he was to leave within its walls. "And the Doctor said +he'd have some one meet us who knew all about you, so there'd be no +fuss." + +He leaped out and came around to her side. She began to thank him once +more, but he cut her short. "I'm going in with you, if I may," he said. +"Something might go wrong about their understanding, and I could save +you a bit of bother." + +She made no objection, and he helped her out. He kept his hand under her +arm as they went up the steps, and did not let her go until they were in +a small reception room, where they were asked to wait for a minute. He +realized now more than he had done before her weakness and the sense of +loneliness that was upon her. He stood beside her, hat in hand, wishing +he had some right to let her know more definitely than he had ventured +to do how sorry he was for her, and how she could count on his thinking +about her as a brother might while she was within these walls. + +But Burns's message evidently had taken effect, as his messages usually +did, for after a very brief wait two figures in uniform appeared, one +showing the commanding presence of a person in authority, the other +wearing the pleasantly efficient aspect of the active nurse. Miss Linton +was to be taken to her room at once, the necessary procedure for +admittance being attended to later. + +Miss Linton seemed to know something about hospitals, for she offered +instant remonstrance. "It's a mistake, I think," she said, lifting her +head as if it were very heavy, but speaking firmly. "I prefer not to +have a room. Please put me in your least expensive ward." + +The person in authority smiled. "Doctor Burns said room," she returned. +"Nobody here is accustomed to dispute Doctor Burns's orders." + +"But I must dispute them," persisted the girl. "I am not--willing--to +take a room." + +"Don't concern yourself about that now," said the other. "You can settle +it with the Doctor when he comes by and by." + +Jordan King inwardly chuckled. "I wonder if it's going to be a case of +two red heads," he said to himself. "I'll bet on R.P." + +The nurse put her arm through Miss Linton's. "Come," she said gently. +"You ought not to be standing." + +The girl turned to King, and put out her small hand in its mended glove. +He grasped it and dared to give it a strong pressure, and to say in a +low tone: "It'll be all right, you know. Keep a stiff upper lip. We're +not going to forget you." He very nearly said "I." + +"Good-bye," she said. "I shall not forget how kind you've been." + +Then she was gone through the big door, the tall nurse beside her +supporting steps which seemed suddenly to falter, and King was staring +after her, feeling his heart contract with sympathy. + + * * * * * + +Four hours later Anne Linton opened her eyes, after an interval of +unconsciousness which had seemed to the nurse who looked in now and then +less like a sleep than a stupor, to find a pair of broad shoulders +within her immediate horizon, and to feel the same lightly firm pressure +on her wrist that she had felt before that afternoon. She looked up +slowly into Burns's eyes. + +"Not so bad, is it?" said his low and reassuring voice. "Bed more +comfortable than doctor's office chairs? Won't mind if you don't ring +any door bells to-morrow? Just let everything go and don't worry--and +you'll be all right." + +"This room--" began the weary young voice--she was really much more +weary now that she had stopped trying to keep up than seemed at all +reasonable--"I can't possibly--" + +"It's just the place for you. Don't do any thinking on that point. You +know you agreed to take my orders, and this is one of them." + +"But I can't possibly--" + +"I said they were my orders," repeated Burns. "But that was a +misstatement. They're the orders of some one else, more powerful than I +am under this roof--and that's saying something, I assure you. I think +you'll have to meet my wife. She's come on purpose to see you. She was +away when you were at the office." + +He beckoned, and another figure moved quietly into range of the brown +eyes which were smoldering with the first advances of the fever. This +figure came around to the other side of the narrow high bed and sat down +beside it. Miss Linton looked into the face, as it seemed to her, of one +of the most attractive women she had ever seen. It was a face which +looked down at her with the sweetest sympathy in its expression, and yet +with that same high cheer which was in the face of the man on the other +side of the bed. + +"My dear little girl," said a low, rich voice, "this is my room, and I +often have the pleasure of seeing my special friends use it. And I come +to see them here. When you are getting well, as you will be by and by, I +can have much nicer talks with you than if you were in a ward. Now that +you understand, you will let me have my way?". + +The burning brown eyes looked into the soft black ones for a full +minute, then, with a long-drawn breath, the tense expression in the +stranger's relaxed. "I see," said the weary voice. "You are used to +having your way--just as he is. I'll have to let you because I haven't +any strength left to fight with. You are wonderfully kind. But--I'm not +a little girl." + +Ellen Burns smiled. "We'll play you are, for a while," she said. "And--I +want you to know that, little or big, you are my friend. So now you have +both Doctor Burns and me, and you are not alone any more." + +The heavy lashes closed over the brown eyes, and the lids were held +tightly shut as if to keep tears back. Seeing this, Ellen rose. + +"Red," she said, "are you going to let us have Miss Arden?" + +"Won't anybody else do?" + +"Do you need her badly somewhere else?" + +"If there were ten of her I could use them all!" declared her husband +emphatically. + +"Nevertheless--" + +Red Pepper Burns got up. He summoned a nurse waiting just outside the +door. "Please send Miss Arden here for a minute," he requested. Then he +turned back. "Are you satisfied with your power?" he asked his wife. + +She nodded. "Quite. But I think you feel, as I do, that this is one of +the ten places where she will be better than another." + +"She's a wonder, all right." + +The patient in the bed presently was bidden to look at her new nurse, +one who was to take care of her much of the time. She lifted her heavy +eyes unwillingly, then she drew another deep breath of relief. "I would +rather have you," she murmured to the serene brow, the kind eyes, the +gently smiling lips of the girl who stood beside her. + +"There's a tribute," laughed Burns softly. "They all feel like that when +they look at you, Selina. And what Mrs. Burns wants she usually gets. +You may special this case to-night, if you are ready to begin night duty +again." + +"I am quite ready," said Miss Arden. + +Burns turned to the bed again. "You are in the best hands we have to +give you," he said. "You are to trust everything to those hands. +Good-night. I'll see you in the morning." + +"Good-night, dear," whispered Mrs. Burns, bending for an instant over +the bed. + +"Oh you angels!" murmured the girl as they left her, her eyes following +them. + + * * * * * + +It was ten days later, in the middle of a wonderful night in early May, +that Miss Arden, beginning to be sure that the case which had interested +her so much was going to give her a hard time before it should be +through, listened to words which roused in her deeper wonder than she +had yet felt for the most unusual patient she had had in a long time. +Although there was as yet nothing that could be called real delirium, a +tendency to talk in a light-headed sort of way was becoming noticeable. +Sitting by the window, the one light in the room deeply shaded, she +heard the voice suddenly say: + + "This evens things up a little, doesn't it? I know a little + more about it now--you must realize that, if you are keeping + track of me--and I know you are--you would--even from another + world. Things aren't fair--they aren't. That you should have + to suffer all you did, to bring you to that pass--while I--But + I know a good deal about it now--really I do. And I'm going to + know more. I didn't sell a single book to-day. You had lots of + such days, didn't you? + Poor--pale--tired--heartsick--heartbroken girl!" + +A little mirthless laugh sounded from the bed. "I wonder how many people +ever let a person who is selling something at the door get into the +house. And if they let her in, do they ever, _ever_ ask her to sit down? +The places where I've stood, telling them about the book, while they +were telling me they didn't want it--stood and stood--and stood--with +great easy chairs in sight! Oh, that chair in my doctor's office--it was +the first chair I'd sat in that whole morning. I went to sleep in it, I +think." + +There followed a long silence, as if the thought of sleep had brought +it on. But then the rambling talk began again. + + "His hair is red--red, like mine. I think that's why his heart + is so warm. Yet her heart is warm, too, and her hair is almost + black. The other man's hair was pretty dark, too, and his + heart seemed--well, not exactly cold. Did he send me some + daffodils the other day? I can't seem to remember. It seems as + if I had seen some--pretty things--lovely, springy things. + Perhaps Mrs.--the red-headed doctor's wife--queer I can't + think of their names--perhaps she sent them. It would be like + her." + +The nurse's glance wandered, in the faint light, to where a great jar of +daffodils stood upon the farther window sill, their heads nodding +faintly in the night breeze. Jordan King's card, which had come with +them, was tucked away in a drawer near by with two other cards, bearing +the same name, which had accompanied other flowers. Miss Arden doubted +if her patient realized who had sent any of them. Afterward--if there +was to be an afterward--she would show the cards to her. Miss Arden, +like many other people, knew Jordan King by reputation, for the family +was an old and established one in the city, and the early success of the +youngest son in a line not often taken up by the sons of such families +was noteworthy. Also he was good to look at, and Miss Arden, +experienced nurse though she was and devoted to her profession, had not +lost her appreciation of youth and health and good looks in those who +were not her patients. + +Unexpectedly, at this hour of the night--it was well toward one +o'clock--the door suddenly opened very quietly and a familiar big figure +entered. Springing up to meet Doctor Burns, Miss Arden showed no +surprise. It was a common thing for this man, summoned to the hospital +at unholy hours for some critical case, to take time to look in on +another patient not technically in need of him. + +The head on the pillow turned at the slight sound beside it. Two wide +eyes stared up at Burns. "You've made a mistake, I think," said the +patient's voice, politely yet firmly. "My doctor has red hair. I know +him by that. Your hair is black." + +"I presume it is, in this light," responded Burns, sitting down by the +bed. "It's pretty red, though, by daylight. In that case will you let me +stay a minute?" His fingers pressed the pulse. Then his hand closed over +hers with a quieting touch. "Since you're awake," he said, "you may as +well have one extra bath to send you back to sleep." + +The head on the pillow signified unwillingness. "I'd take one to please +my red-headed doctor, but not you." + +"You'd do anything for him, eh?" questioned Burns, his eyes on the chart +which the nurse had brought him and upon which she was throwing the +light of a small flash. "Well, you see he wants you to have this bath; +he told me so." + +"Very well, then," she said with a sigh. "But I don't like them. They +make me shiver." + +"I know it. But they're good for you. They keep your red-headed doctor +master of the situation. You want him to be that, don't you?" + +"He'd be that anyway," said she confidently. + +Burns smiled, but the smile faded quickly. He gave a few brief +directions, then slipped away as quietly as he had come. + + * * * * * + +It was well into the next week when one morning he encountered Jordan +King, who had been out of town for several days. King came up to him +eagerly. Since this meeting occurred just outside the hospital, where +Burns's car had been standing in its accustomed place for the last hour, +it might not have been a wholly accidental encounter. + +King made no attempt to maneuver for information. Maneuvering with Red +Pepper Burns, as the young man was well aware, seldom served any +purpose but to subject the artful one to a straight exposure. He asked +his question abruptly. + +"I want to hear how Miss Linton is doing. I'm just back from +Washington--haven't heard for a week." + +Burns frowned. No physician likes to be questioned about his cases, +particularly if they are not progressing to suit him. But he answered, +in a sort of growl: "She's not doing." + +King looked startled. "You mean--not doing well?" + +"She's fighting for existence--and--slipping." + +"But--you haven't given her up?" + +Burns exploded with instant wrath. King might have known that question +would make him explode. "Given her up! Don't you know a red-headed fiend +like me better than that?" + +"I know you're a bulldog when you get your teeth in," admitted Jordan +King, looking decidedly unhappy and anxious. "If I'm just sure you've +got 'em in, that's enough." + +Burns grunted. The sound was significant. + +King ventured one more question, though Red Pepper's foot was on his +starter, and the engine had caught the spark and turned over. "If +there's anything I could do," he offered hurriedly and earnestly. +"Supply a special nurse, or anything--" + +Burns shook his head. "Two specials now, and half the staff interested. +It's up to Anne Linton and nobody else. If she can do the trick--she and +Nature--all right. If not--well--Thanks for letting go the car, Jord. +This happens to be my busy day." + +Jordan King looked after him, his heart uncomfortably heavy. Then he +stepped into his own car and drove away, taking his course down a side +street from which he could get a view of certain windows. They were wide +open to the May breeze and the sunshine, but no pots of daffodils or +other flowers stood on their empty sills. He knew it was useless to send +them now. + +"But if she does pull through," he said to himself between his teeth, +"I'll bring her such an armful of roses she can't see over the top of +'em. God send I get the chance!" + + + + +CHAPTER V + +SUSQUEHANNA + + +Red Pepper Burns drove into the vine-covered old red barn behind his +house which served as his garage, and stopped his engine with an air of +finality. + +"Johnny," said he, addressing the young man who was accustomed to drive +with him--and for him when for any reason he preferred not to drive +himself, which was seldom--and who kept the car in the most careful +trim, "not for man or beast, angel or devil will I go out again +to-night." + +Johnny Carruthers grinned. "No, sir," he replied. "Not unless they +happen to want you," he added. + +"Not if they offer me a thousand dollars for the trip," growled his +master. + +"You would for a dead beat, though," suggested the devoted servant, who +by virtue of five years of service knew whereof he spoke, "if he'd +smashed his good-for-nothin' head." + +"Not if he'd smashed his whole blamed body--so long as there was +another surgeon in the county who could do the job." + +"That's just the trouble," argued Johnny. "You'd think there wasn't." + +Red Pepper looked at him. "Johnny, you're an idiot!" he informed him. +Then he strode away toward the house. + +As he went into his office the telephone rang. The office was empty, for +it was dinner-time, and Miss Mathewson was having a day off duty on +account of her mother's illness. So, unhappily for the person at the +other end of the wire, the Doctor himself answered the ring. It had been +a hard day, following other hard days, and he was feeling intense +fatigue, devastating depression, and that unreasoning irritability which +is born of physical weariness and mental unrest. + +"Hello," shouted the victim of these disorders into the transmitter. +"What?... No, I can't.... What?... No. Get somebody else.... What?... I +can't, I say.... Yes, you can. Plenty of 'em.... What?... Absolutely +_no_! Good-bye!" + +"I ought to feel better after that," muttered Burns, slamming the +receiver on the hook. "But somehow I don't." + +In two minutes he was splashing in a hot bath, as always at the end of a +busy day. From the tub he was summoned to the telephone, the upstairs +extension, in his own dressing room. With every red hair erect upon his +head after violent towelling, he answered the message which reached his +unwilling ears. + +"What's that? Worse? She isn't--it's all in her mind. Tell her she's all +right. I saw her an hour ago. What?... Well, that's all imagination, as +I've told her ten thousand times. There's absolutely nothing the matter +with her heart.... No, I'm not coming--she's not to be babied like +that.... No, I won't. Good-bye!" + +The door of the room softly opened. A knock had preceded the entrance of +Ellen, but Burns hadn't heard it. He eyed her defiantly. + +"Do you feel much, much happier now?" she asked with a merry look. + +"If I don't it's not the fault of the escape valve. I pulled it wide +open." + +"I heard the noise of the escaping steam." She came close and stood +beside him, where he sat, half dressed and ruddy in his bathrobe. He put +up both arms and held her, lifting his head for her kiss, which he +returned with interest. + +"That's the first nice thing that's happened to me to-day--since the one +I had when I left you this morning," he remarked. "I'm all in to-night, +and ugly as a bear, as usual. I feel better, just this minute, with you +in my arms and a bath to the good, but I'm a beast just the same, and +you'd best take warning.... Oh, the--" + +For the telephone bell was ringing again. From the way he strode across +the floor in his bathrobe and slippers it was small wonder that the +walls trembled. His wife, watching him, felt a thrill of sympathy for +the unfortunate who was to get the full force of that concussion. With a +scowl on his brow he lifted the receiver, and his preliminary "Hello!" +was his deepest-throated growl. But then the scene changed. Red Pepper +listened, the scowl giving place to an expression of a very different +character. He asked a quick question or two, with something like a most +unaccustomed breathlessness in his voice, and then he said, in the +businesslike but kind way which characterized him when his sympathies +were roused: + +"I'll be there as quick as I can get there. Call Doctor Buller for me, +and let Doctor Grayson know I may want him." + +Rushing at the completion of his dressing he gave a hurried explanation, +in answer to his wife's anxious inquiry, "It isn't Anne Linton?" + +"It's worse, it's Jord King. He's had a bad accident--confound his +recklessness! I'm afraid he's made a mess of it this time for fair, +though I can't be sure till I get there." + +"Where is he?" Ellen's face had turned pale. + +"At the hospital. His man Aleck is hurt, too. Call Johnny, please, and +have him bring the car around and go with me." + +Ellen flew, and five minutes later watched her husband gulp down a cup +of the strong coffee Cynthia always made him at such crises when, in +spite of fatigue, he must lose no time nor adequately reënforce his +physical energy with food. + +"Oh, I'm so sorry you couldn't rest to-night," she said as he set down +the cup and, pulling his hat over his eyes, picked up the heavy surgical +bags. + +"Couldn't, anyway, with the universe on my mind, so I might as well keep +going," was Burns's gruff reply, though the kiss he left on her lips was +a long one and spoke his appreciation of her tender comradeship. + +She did not see him again till morning, though she lay awake many hours. +He came in at daylight; she heard the car go in at the driveway, and, +rising hurriedly, was ready to meet him when he came into the living +room downstairs. + +"Up so early?" questioned Burns as he saw her. The next minute he had +folded her in one of those strong-armed embraces which speak of a glad +return to one whose life is a part of one's own. "I wonder," he +murmured, with his cheek pressed to hers, "if a man ever came back to +sweeter arms than these!" + +But she knew, in spite of this greeting, that his heart was heavy. Her +own heart sank. But she waited, asking no questions. He would tell her +when he was ready. + +He drew her down upon the couch beside him and sat with his arm around +her. "No, I don't want to lie down just yet," he said. "I just want you. +I'm keeping you in suspense, I know; I oughtn't to do that. Jord's life +is all right, and he'll be himself again in time, but--well, I've lost +my nerve for a bit--I can't talk about it." + +His voice broke. By and by it steadied again; and, his weariness +partially lifted by the heartening little breakfast Ellen brought him on +a tray, he told her the story of the night: + +"Jord was coming in from the Coldtown Waterworks, forty miles out, late +for dinner and hustling to make up time. Aleck, the Kings' chauffeur, +was with him. They were coming in at a good clip, even for a back +street, probably twenty-five or thirty. There wasn't much on the street +except ahead, by the curb, a wagon, and coming toward him a big motor +truck. When he was fifty feet from the wagon a fellow stepped out from +behind it to cross the street. It was right under the arc light, and +Jord recognized Franz--'Little Hungary' you know--with his fiddle under +his arm, crossing to go in at the stage door of the Victoria Theatre, +where he plays. The boy didn't see them at all. + +"Neither Jord nor Aleck can tell much about it yet, of course, but from +the little I got I know as well as if I had been there what happened. He +slammed on the brakes--it was the only thing he could do, with the motor +truck taking up half the narrow street. The pavement was wet--a shower +was just over. Of course she skidded completely around to the left, just +missing the truck, and when she hit the curb over she went. She jammed +Jord between the car and the ground, injuring his back pretty badly but +not permanently, as nearly as I can make out. But she crushed Aleck's +right arm so that--" + +He drew a long breath, a difficult breath, and Ellen, listening, cried +out against the thing she instantly felt it meant. + +"O Red! You don't mean--" + +He nodded. "I took it off, an hour afterward--at the shoulder." + +Ellen turned white, and in a moment more she was crying softly within +the shelter of her husband's arm. He sat with set lips, and eyes staring +at the empty fireplace before him. Presently he spoke again, and his +voice was very low, as if he could not trust it: + +"Aleck was game. He was the gamest chap I ever saw. All he said when I +told him was, 'Go ahead, Doctor.' I never did a harder thing in all my +life. I suppose army surgeons get more or less used to it, but +somehow--when I knew what that arm meant to Aleck, and how an hour +before it had been a perfect thing, and now--" + +He did not try to tell her more just then, but later, when both were +steadied, he added a few more important details to the story: + +"Franz went to the hospital with them--wouldn't leave them--ran the risk +of losing his position. Do you know, Jord has been teaching that boy +English, evenings, and naturally Franz adores him. I suppose Jord would +have taken that skid for any blamed beggar who got in his way, but of +course it didn't take any force off the way he jammed on those brakes +when he saw it was a friend he was going to hit. And a friend he was +going to maim--pretty hard choice to make, wasn't it? But of course it +was sure death to Franz if he hit him, at that pace, so there was +nothing else to do but take the chance for himself and Aleck. Maybe you +can guess, though, how he feels about Aleck. One wouldn't think he knew +he'd been cruelly hurt himself." + +"Oh! I thought--" + +"Jord's back will give him a lot of trouble for a while, but his spine +isn't seriously injured, if I know my trade. Altogether--well--the +nurses have got a couple of interesting cases on their hands for a +while. No doubt Aleck will be well looked after. As for Jord--he'll be +so much the more helpless of the two for a while, I'm afraid he'll prove +a distraction that will demoralize the force." + +He smiled faintly for the first time, but his face sobered again +instantly. + +"Anne Linton's pretty weak, but she took a little nourishment sanely +this morning just before I came away. Miss Arden feels a trifle +encouraged. I confess this thing of Jord's has knocked the girl out of +my mind for the time being, though I shall get her back again fast +enough, if I don't find things going right when I see her. Well"--he +turned his wife's face toward him, with a hand against her cheek--"it's +all out now, and I'm eased a bit by the telling. I wish I could get +forty winks, just to make a break between last night and this morning." + +"You shall. Lie down and I'll put you to sleep." + +He did not think it possible, in spite of his exhaustion, but presently +under her quieting touch he was over the brink, greatly to Ellen's +relief. Her heart contracted with love and sympathy as she watched his +face. It was a weary face, now in its relaxation, and there were heavy +shadows under the closed eyes. Every now and then a frown crossed the +broad brow, as if the sleeper were not wholly at ease, could not forget, +even in his dreams, what he had had to do a few hours ago. She thought +of young Aleck with his manly, smiling face, his pride in keeping Jordan +King's car as fine and efficient beneath its hood--mud-splashed though +it often was without--as he did the shining limousine he drove for Mrs. +Alexander King, Jordan's mother. She thought of what it must be to him +now to know that he was maimed for life. As for King himself, she knew +him well enough to understand how his own injuries would count for +little beside his distress in having had to deal the blow which had +crushed that strong young arm of Aleck's. Her heart ached for them +both--and even for poor Franz, weeping at having been the innocent cause +of all this havoc. + +Two hours' sleep did his wife secure for Burns before he woke, stoutly +avowing himself fit for anything again, and setting off, immediately +breakfast was over, for the place to which his thoughts had leaped with +his first return to consciousness. + +"Can't rest till I see old Jord. Did I tell you that he insisted on +Aleck's having the room next his, precisely as big and airy as his own? +There's a door between, and when it's open they can see each other. When +I left Jord the door was open, and he was staring in at Aleck, who was +still sleeping off the anesthetic, and a big tear was running down +Jord's cheek. He can't stir himself, but that doesn't seem to bother him +any. He's going to suffer a lot of pain with his back, but he'll suffer +ten times more looking at that bandaged shoulder of Aleck's." + + * * * * * + +It was four days later that Ellen saw King. She was prepared to find +him, as Burns had called him, "game," but she had not known just all +that term means among men when it is applied to such a one as he. If he +had been receiving her after having suffered a bad wrench of the ankle +he could not have treated the occasion more simply. + +"This is mighty good of you," he said, reaching up a well-developed +right arm from his bed, where he lay flat on his back without so much as +a pillow beneath his head. His hair was carefully brushed, his bandages +were concealed, his lips were smiling, and altogether he was, except for +his prostrate position, no picture of an invalid. + +"I've just been waiting to come," she said, returning the firm pressure +of his hand with that of both her own. + +"And meanwhile you've kept me reminded of you by these wonderful +flowers," he said with a nod toward the ranks on ranks of roses which +crowded table and window sills. + +"Oh, but not all those!" she denied. "I might have known you would be +deluged with them. Daisies and buttercups out of the fields would have +been better." + +"No, because those you sent look like you. Doctor Burns won't grudge me +the pleasure of saying now what I like to his wife--and it's the first +time I've really dared tell you what I thought." + +"What a charming compliment! But I'm going to send you something much +more substantial now--good things to eat, and books to read, if I can +just find out what you like--and even games to play, if you care for +them." + +"I'll be delighted, if they're something Aleck and I can play together. +You see when that door is open we aren't far apart, and it won't be +long, Doctor Burns says, before he'll be walking in here to keep me +company--till he gets out." + +"He is doing well, I hear. I'm so glad." + +"Yes, that husky young constitution of his is telling finely--plus your +husband's surgery. My poor boy!" He shut his lips upon the words, and +kept them closely pressed together for an instant. "My word, Mrs. +Burns--he's the stuff that heroes are made of! His living to earn for +the rest of his life--with one arm--and you'd think he'd lost the tip of +one finger. If ever I let that boy go out of my employ--why, he's worth +more as a shining example of pluck than other men are worth with two +good arms!" + +"I must go and see him--if he'd care to have me." + +"He'd take it as the honour of his life. He's crazy over the flowers you +sent him." + +"Would he care for books? And what sort? I'm going to bring both of you +books." + +"Stories of adventure will suit Aleck--the wilder the better. Odd +choice--for such a peaceable-looking fellow, isn't it? As for +me--something I'll have to work hard to listen to, something to keep an +edge on my mind. I've counted the cracks in the ceiling till I have a +map of them by heart. I've worked out a system by which I can drain that +ceiling country and raise crops there. There isn't much else in this +room that I can count or lay out--worse luck! So I've named all the +roses, and have wagers with myself as to which will fade first. I'm +betting on Susquehanna, that big red one, to outlast all the rest." + + * * * * * + +When Red Pepper looked in half an hour later, it was to find the door +open between the two rooms, and his wife listening, smiling, to an +incident of the night just past, as told by first one patient and then +the other. The two young men might have been two comrades lying beside a +campfire, so gay was their jesting with each other, so light their +treatment of the wakeful hours both had spent. + +"No, there's nothing the matter with either of them," observed Burns, +looking from one bedside to the other. "Franz is the chap with the heavy +heart; these two are just enjoying a summer holiday. But I'm not going +to keep the communication open long at a time, as yet." + +He went in to see Aleck, closing the door again. When he returned he +took up a position at the foot of King's bed, regarding him in silence. +Ellen looked up at her husband. There was something in his face which +had not been there of late--a curiously bright look, as if a cloud were +lifted. She studied him intently, and when he returned the scrutiny she +raised her eyebrows in an interrogation. He nodded, smiling quizzically. + +"Jord," he said, "if you want to keep your secrets to yourself, beware +of letting any woman come within range. My wife has just read me as if I +were an open book in large black type." + +"Bound in scarlet and gold," added Ellen. "Tell us, Red. You really have +good news?" + +"The best. I am pretty confident Anne Linton has turned the corner. I +hoped it yesterday, but wasn't sure enough to say so. Did you know that, +too?" + +"Of course. But you were in small type yesterday. To-day he who runs may +read. You would know it yourself, wouldn't you, Jordan?" + +The man in the bed studied the man who stood at its foot. The two +regarded each other as under peculiar circumstances men do who have a +strong bond of affection and confidence between them. + +"He's such a bluffer," said King. "I hadn't supposed anybody could tell +much about what he was thinking. But I do see he looks pretty jolly this +morning, and I don't imagine it's all bluff. I'm certainly glad to hear +Miss Linton is doing well." + +"Doing well isn't exactly the phrase even now," admitted Red Pepper. +"There are lots of things that can happen yet. But the wind and waves +have floated her little craft off the rocks, and the leaks in the boat +are stopped. If she doesn't spring any more, and the winds continue +favourable, we'll make port." + +Jordan King looked as happy as if he had been the brother of this +patient of Burns's, whom neither of them had known a month ago, and whom +one of them had seen but once. + +"That's great," he said. "I haven't dared to ask since I came here +myself, knowing how poor the prospects were the last time I did ask. I +was afraid I should surely hear bad news. When can we begin to send her +flowers again? Couldn't I send some of mine? I'd like her to have +Susquehanna there, and Rappahannock--and I think Arapahoe and Apache +will run them pretty close on lasting. Would you mind taking them to her +when you go?" His eyes turned to Mrs. Burns. + +"I'd love to, but I shall not dare to tell her you are here, just yet. +She is very weak, isn't she, Red?" + +"As a starved pussy cat. The flowers won't hurt her, but we don't want +to rouse her sympathies as yet." + +"I should say not. Don't mention me; just take her the posies," +instructed King, his cheek showing a slight access of colour. + +"You won't know whether Susquehanna wins your wager or not," Ellen +reminded him as she obediently separated the indicated blooms, +magnificent great hothouse specimens with stems like pillars. That the +finest of all these roses, not excepting those she had sent herself, had +come from private greenhouses, she well knew. The Kings lived in the +centre of the wealthiest quarter of the city, though not themselves +possessed of more than moderate riches. Their name, however, was an old +and honoured one, Jordan himself was a favourite, and none in the city +was too important to be glad to be admitted at his home. + +"Anything more I can do for you before I go?" inquired Burns of his +patient when Ellen had gone, smiling back at King from over the big +roses and promising to keep track of Susquehanna for him in her daily +visits. + +"Nothing, thank you. You did it all an hour ago, and left me more +comfortable than I expected to be just yet. I'm not sure whether it was +the dressing or the visit that did me the most good." + +"You're a mighty satisfactory sort of patient. That good clean blood of +yours is telling already in your recovery from shock. It tells in +another way, too." + +"What's that?" + +"Sheer pluck." + +King's eyelids fell. It meant much to him to stand well in the +estimation of this man, himself distinguished for the cool daring of his +work, his endurance of the hard drudgery of his profession as well as +the brilliant performance on occasion. "I'm glad you think so--Red +Pepper Burns," King answered daringly. Then, as the other laughed, he +added: "Do you know what would make me the most docile patient you could +ask?" + +"Docile doesn't seem just the word for you--but I'd be glad to know, in +case of emergency." + +"Let me call you that--the name your best friends have for you. It's a +bully name. I know I'm ten years younger--but--" + +"Good lack! Jordan King, call me anything you like! I'll appreciate it." + +"You've no idea how long I've wanted to do it--Red," vowed the younger +man, with the flush again creeping into his cheek. + +"Why didn't you long ago?" Burns demanded. "Surely dignity's no +characteristic of mine. If Anne Linton can call me 'Red Head' on no +acquaintance at all--" + +"She didn't do that!" King looked a little as if he had received a blow. + +"Only when she was off her head, of course. She took me for a wildcat +once, poor child. No, no--when she was sane she addressed me very +properly. She's back on the old decorous ground now. Made me a beautiful +little speech this morning, informing me that I had to stop calling her +'little girl,' for she was twenty-four years old. As she looks about +fifteen at the present, and a starved little beggar at that, I found it +a bit difficult to begin on 'Miss Linton,' particularly as I have been +addressing her as 'Little Anne' all the time." + +"Starved?" King seemed to have paused at this significant word. + +"Oh, we'll soon fill her out again. She's really not half so thin as +she might be under the old-style treatment. It strikes me you have a +good deal of interest in my patients, Jord. Shall I describe the rest of +them for you?" + +Burns looked mischievous, but King did not seem at all disturbed. + +"Naturally I am interested in a girl you made me bring to the hospital +myself. And at present--well--a fellow feeling, you know. I see how it +is myself now. I didn't then." + +"True enough. Well, I'll bring you daily bulletins from Miss Anne. And +when she's strong enough I'll break the news to her of your proximity. +Doubtless your respective nurses will spend their time carrying flowers +back and forth from one of you to the other." + +"More than likely," King admitted. "Anything to fill in the time. I'm +sorry I can't take her out in my car when she's ready. I've been +thinking, Doctor--Red," he went on hastily, "that there's got to be some +way for Aleck to drive that car in the future. I'm going to work out a +scheme while I lie here." + +"Work out anything. I'll prophesy right now that as soon as you get +fairly comfortable you'll think out more stuff while you're lying on +your back than you ever did in a given period of time before. It won't +be lost time at all; it'll be time gained. And when you do get back on +your legs--no, don't ask me when that'll be, I can't tell nor any other +fellow--but when you do get back you'll make things fly as they never +did before--and that's going some." + +"You _are_ a great bluffer, but I admit that I like the sound of it," +was King's parting speech as he watched Burns depart. + +On account of this latest interview he was able to bear up the better +under the immediately following visit of his mother, an +aristocratic-looking, sweet-faced but sad-eyed lady, who could not yet +be reconciled to that which had happened to her son, and who visited him +twice daily to bring hampers of fruit, food, and flowers, in quantity +sufficient to sustain half the patients in a near-by ward. She +invariably shed a few quiet tears over him which she tried vainly to +conceal, addressed him in a mournful tone, and in spite of his efforts +to cheer her managed to leave behind her after each visit an atmosphere +of depression which it took him some time and strength to overcome. + +"Poor mother, she can't help it," philosophized her son. "What stumps +me, though, is why one who takes life so hard should outlive a man like +my father, who was all that is brave and cheerful. Perhaps it took it +out of him to be always playing the game boldly against her fears. But +even so--give me the bluffers, like Red Pepper--and like Mrs. Red. +Jove! but she's a lovely woman. No wonder he adores her. So do I--with +his leave. And so does Anne Linton, I should imagine. Poor little +girl--what does she look like, I wonder?" + +If he could have seen her at that moment, holding Susquehanna against +her hollow young cheek, the glowing flower making the white face a +pitiful contrast, he would have been even more touched than he could +have imagined. Also--he would have felt that his wager concerning +Susquehanna was likely to be lost. It is not conducive to the life of a +rose to be loved and caressed as this one was being. But since it was +the first of her flowers that Anne Linton had been able to take note of +and enjoy, it might have been considered a life--and a wager--well lost. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +HEAVY LOCAL MAILS + + +Anne Linton lifted her head ever so little from the allowed incline of +her pillow in the Good Samaritan Hospital. She peered anxiously at the +tray being borne toward her by Selina Arden, most scrupulously +conscientious of all trained nurses, and never more rigidly exact than +when the early diet of patients in convalescence was concerned. + +"Is that all?" murmured Anne in a tone of anguish. + +"All!" replied Miss Arden firmly. But she smiled, showing her perfect +white teeth--and showing also her sympathy by the tone in which she +added: "Poor child!" + +"Shall I never, never, never," asked the patient, hungrily surveying the +tray at close range, "have enough just to dull these pangs a little? Not +enough to satisfy me, of course, but just enough to take the edge off?" + +"Very soon now," replied Miss Arden cheerily, "you shall have a pretty +good-sized portion of beefsteak, juicy and tender, and you shall eat it +all up--" + +"And leave not a wrack behind," moaned Anne Linton, closing her eyes. +"But you are wrong, Miss Arden--I shall not eat it, I shall _gulp_ +it--the way a dog does. I always wondered why a dog has no manners about +eating. I know now. He is so hungry his eyes eat it first, so his mouth +has no chance. Well, I'm certainly thankful for the food on this tray. +It's awfully good--what there is of it." + +She consumed it, making the process as lingering as was consistent with +the ravaging appetite which was a real torture. When the last mouthful +had vanished she set her eyes upon the clock--the little travelling +clock which was Miss Arden's and which had ticked busily and cheerfully +through all those days of illness when Anne's eyes had never once lifted +to notice the passage of time. + +"I was so long about it," said the girl gleefully, "that now it's only +two hours and forty minutes to the next refreshment station. I expect I +can keep on living till then if I use all my will power." + +"And here's something to make you forget how long two hours and forty +minutes are." + +Miss Arden went to the door and, returning, laid suddenly in Anne's arms +a great, fragrant mass of white bloom, at the smell and touch of which +she gave a half-smothered cry of rapture, and buried her face in the +midst of it. "White lilacs--oh, white lilacs! The dears--the loves! Oh, +where _did_ they come from?" + +"There's a note that came with them," admitted Miss Arden presently, +when she had let the question go unanswered for some time, while Anne, +seeming to forget that she had asked it, smelled and smelled of the cool +white and green branches as if she could never have enough of them. Into +her eyes had leaped a strange look, as if some memory were connected +with these outdoor flowers which made them different for her from the +hothouse blooms, or even from the daffodils and tulips that had +alternated with the roses which had come often since her convalescence +began. + +Anne reached up an eager hand for the note, a look of surprise on her +face. Miss Arden, looking back at her, noted how each day was helping to +remove the pallor and wanness from that face. At the moment, under the +caress of the lilacs and the surprise of the impending note, it was +showing once more a decided touch of its former beauty. Also she was +wearing a little invalid's wrap of lace and pink silk, given her by Mrs. +Burns, and this helped the effect. + +Anne unfolded the note. Miss Arden went away with the empty tray, and +remained away some time. Miss Arden, as has been said before, was a +most remarkable nurse. + +The note read thus: + + The Next Corridor, 10:30 A.M. + + DEAR MISS LINTON: + + The time has come, it seems to me, for two patients who have + nothing to do but while away the hours for a bit longer, to + help each other out. What do you say? I suppose you don't know + that I've been lying flat on my back now for a fortnight, + getting over a rather bad spill from my car. I'm pretty + comfortable now, thank you, so don't waste a particle of + sympathy; but the hours must certainly drag for you as they do + for me, and my idea is that we ought to establish some sort of + system of intercommunication. I have an awfully obliging + nurse, and a young man with a fiddle here besides, and I'd + like to send you a short musicale when you feel up to it. Are + you fond of music? I have a notion you are. Franz will come + and play for you whenever you say. But besides that I'd + awfully like to have a note from you as soon as you are able + to write. I'll answer it, you know--and then you'll answer + that, perhaps--and so the hours will go by. I know this is a + rather free-and-easy-sounding proposition from a perfect + stranger, as I suppose you think me, but circumstances do + alter cases, you know, and if our circumstances can't alter + our cases, then it's no good being laid up! + + Hearty congratulations on that raging appetite. You see Doctor + Burns is good enough to keep me informed as to how you come + on. You certainly seem to be coming on now. Please keep it up. + I shouldn't dare ask you to write to me if the Doctor hadn't + said you could--if you wouldn't do it enough to tire you. + So--I'm hoping. + + Yours, under the same roof, + + JORDAN KING. + +"Good morning!" said a beloved voice from the doorway. Anne looked up +eagerly from her letter. + +"Oh, Mrs. Burns--good morning! And won't you please stand quite still +for a minute while I look at you?" + +Ellen laughed. To other people than Anne Linton she was always the +embodiment of quiet charm in her freshness of attire and air of general +daintiness. In the pale gray and white of her summer clothing, with a +spray of purple lilac tucked into her belt, she was a vision to rest the +eye upon. "You are looking ever so well yourself to-day," Ellen said as +she sat down close beside Anne, facing her. "Another week and you will +be showing us what you really look like." + +"The little pink cover-up does me as much good as anything," declared +Anne. "I never thought I could wear pink with my carroty hair. But Miss +Arden says I can wear anything you say I can, and I believe her." + +"Your hair is bronze, not carroty, and that apricot shade of pink tones +in with it beautifully. What a glorious mass of white lilacs! I never +saw any so fine." + +"They're wonderful. I insisted on keeping them right here, I'm so fond of +the fragrance. They came from Mr. King," said Anne frankly. "And a note +from him says he's here in the hospital with an injured back. I'm so +sorry. Please tell me how badly he is hurt." + +"He will have to be patient for some weeks longer, I believe, but there +is no permanent injury. Meanwhile, he is like any man confined, restless +for want of occupation. Still, he keeps his time pretty full." And Ellen +proceeded to recount the story of Franz, and of how Jordan King was +continuing here in the hospital to teach him to speak English, finding +him the quickest and most grateful of pupils. + +"How splendid of him! He's going to send Franz to play for me. I can't +think of anything--except beefsteak--I should like so much!" and Anne +laughed, her face all alight with interest. But the next instant it +sobered. "Mrs. Burns," she said, "there's something I want to say very +much, and so far the Doctor hasn't let me. But I'm quite strong enough +now to begin to make plans, and one of them is this: The minute I'm able +to leave the hospital I want to go to some inexpensive place where I can +stay without bothering anybody. You have all been so wonderful to me I +can never express my gratitude, but I'm beginning to feel--oh, can't you +guess how anxious I am to be taking care of myself again? And I want you +to know that I have quite money enough to do it until I can go on with +my work." + +Mrs. Burns looked at her. In the excitement of talking the girl's face +looked rounder and of a better colour than it had yet shown, and her +eyes were glowing, eyes of such beauty as are not often seen. But for +all that, she seemed like some lovely child who could no more take care +of itself than could a newborn kitten. Ellen laid one hand on hers. + +"You are not to think about such things yet, dear," she said. "Do you +imagine we have not grown very fond of you, and would let you go off +into some place alone before you are fully yourself again? Not a bit of +it. As soon as you can leave here you are coming to me as my guest. And +when you are playing tennis with Bob, on our lawn, you may begin to talk +about plans for the future." + +Anne stared back at her, a strange expression on her face. "Oh, no!" she +breathed. + +"Oh, yes! You can't think how I am looking forward to it. Meanwhile--you +are not to tire yourself with talking. I only stopped for a minute, and +the Doctor is waiting by now. Good-bye, my dear." And before Anne could +protest she was gone, having learned, by experience, that the way to +terminate useless argument with the one who is not strong enough to be +allowed to argue is by making early escape. + +That afternoon, having recovered from the two surprises of the morning, +Anne asked for pencil and paper. Miss Arden, supplying them, stipulated +that their use should cover but five minutes. + +"It is one of the last things we let patients do," she said, "though it +is the thing they all want to do first. There is nothing so tiring as +letter writing." + +"I'm not going to write a letter," Anne replied, "just a hail to a +fellow sufferer. Only I'm no sufferer, and I'm afraid he is." + +She wrote her note, and it was presently handed to Jordan King. He had +wondered very much what sort of answer he should have, feeling that +nothing could reveal the sort of person this girl was so surely as a +letter, no matter how short. He had been sure he recognized education in +her speech, breeding in her manner, high intelligence as well as beauty +in her face, but--well, the letter would reveal. And so it did, though +it was written in a rather shaky hand, in pencil, on one of Miss Arden's +hospital record blanks--of all things! + + DEAR MR. KING: + + It is the most wonderful thing in the world to be sitting up + far enough to be able to write and tell you how sorry I am + that you are lying down. But Mrs. Burns assures me that you + are fast improving and that soon you will be about again. + Meanwhile you are turning your time of waiting to a glorious + account in teaching poor Franz to speak English. Surely he + must have been longing to speak it, so that he might tell you + the things in his heart--about that dreadful night. But I know + you don't want me to write of that, and I won't. + + Of course I should care to have him play for me, and I hope + he may do it soon--to-morrow, perhaps. I wonder if he knows + the Schubert "_Frühlingstraum_"--how I should love to hear it! + As for your interesting plan for relieving the passing hours, + I should hardly be human if I did not respond to it! Only + please never write when you don't feel quite like it--and + neither will I. + + The white lilacs were even more beautiful than the roses and + the daffodils. There was a long row of white lilac trees at + one side of a garden I used to play in--I shall never, never + forget what that fragrance was like after a rain! And now that + my sun is shining again--after the rain--you may imagine what + those white lilacs breathe of to me. + + With the best of good wishes, + + ANNE LINTON. + + +Jordan King read this note through three times before he folded it back +into its original creases. Then he shut it away in a leather-bound +writing tablet which lay by his side. "Franz," he said, addressing the +youth who was at this hour of the day his sole attendant, "can you play +Schubert's '_Frühlingstraum_'?" + +He had to repeat this title several times, with varying accents, before +he succeeded in making it intelligible. But suddenly Franz leaped to an +understanding. + +"Yess--yess--yess--yess--sair," he responded joyously, and made a dive +for his violin case. + +"Softly, Franz," warned his master. As this was a word which had thus +far been often used in his education, on account of the fact that the +hospital did not belong exclusively to King--strange as that might seem +to Franz who worshipped him--it was immediately comprehended. Without +raising the tones of his instrument, Franz was able presently to make +clear to King that the music he was asked to play was of the best at his +command. + +"No wonder she likes that," was King's inward comment. "It's a strange, +weird thing, yet beautiful in a haunting sort of way, I imagine, to a +girl like her, and I don't know but it would be to me if I heard it many +times--while I was smelling lilacs in the rain," he added, smiling to +himself. + +That hint of a garden had rather taken hold of his imagination. More +than likely, he said to himself, it had been her own garden--only she +would not tell him so lest she seem to try to convey an idea of former +prosperity. A different sort of girl would have said "our garden." + + * * * * * + +Next morning, at the time of Mrs. Burns's visit to the hospital, King +sent Franz to play for Miss Linton. With her breakfast tray had come his +second note telling her of this intention, so she had two hours of +anticipation--a great thing in the life of a convalescent. With every +bronze lock in shining order, with the little wrap of apricot pink silk +and lace about her shoulders, with an extra pillow at her back, Miss +Anne Linton awaited the coming of the "Court Musician," as King had +called him. + +"It's a very good thing Jord can't see her at this minute," observed +Burns to his wife as he met her in the hall outside the door. "The +prettiest convalescent has less appeal for a doctor than a young woman +of less good looks in strapping health--naturally, for he gets quite +enough of illness and the signs thereof. But to a lusty chap like King +Miss Anne's present frail appearance would undoubtedly enlist his +chivalry. Those are some eyes of hers, eh?" + +"I think I have never seen more beautiful eyes," Ellen agreed heartily. + +Her husband laughed. "I have," he said, and went his way, having no time +for morning musicales. + +That afternoon Anne Linton, having had all her pillows removed and +having obediently lain still and silent for two long hours, was +permitted to sit up again and write a note to King to tell him of the +joy of the morning: + + DEAR MR. KING: + + It was as if the twilight were falling, with the stars coming + out one by one. By and by they were all shining, and I was on + a mountain top somewhere, with the wind blowing softly + against my face. It was dark and I was all alone, but I + didn't mind, for I was strong, strong again, and I knew I + could run down by and by and be with people. Then a storm came + on, and I lifted my face to if and loved it, and when it died + away the stars were shining again between the clouds. + Somewhere a little bird was singing--I opened my eyes just + there, and your Franz was looking at me and smiling, and I + smiled back. He seemed so happy to be making me happy--for he + was, of course. After a while it was dawn--the loveliest dawn, + all flushed with pink and silver, and I couldn't keep my eyes + shut any more for looking at the musician's face. He is a real + musician, you know, and the music he makes comes out of his + soul. + + When it was all over and he and Mrs. Burns were gone, my tray + came in. This is a frightful confession, but I am not a real + musician; I merely love good music with some sort of + understanding of what it means to those who really care, as + Franz does. To me, after all the emotion, my tray looked like + a sort of solid rock that I could cling to. And I had a piece + of wonderful beefsteak--ah, now you are laughing! Never + mind--I'll show you the two scenes. + +Upon the second sheet was something which made Jordan King open his +eyes. There were two little drawings--the simplest of pencil sketches, +yet executed with a spirit and skill which astonished him. The first was +of Franz himself, done in a dozen lines. There was no attempt at a +portrait, yet somehow Franz was there, in the very set of the head, the +angle of the lifted brow, the pose of the body, most of all in the +indication of the smiling mouth, the drooping eyelids. The second +picture was a funny sketch of a big-eyed girl devouring food from a +tray. Two lines made the pillows behind her, six outlined the tray, a +dozen more demonstrated plainly the famishing appetite with which the +girl was eating. It was all there--it was astonishing how it was all +there. + +"My word!" he said as he laid down the sheets--and took them up again, +"that's artist work, whether she knows it or not. She must know it, +though, for she must have had training. I wonder where and how." + +He called Miss Arden and showed her the sketches. + +"Dear me, but they're clever," she said. "They look like a child's +work--and yet they aren't." + +"I should say not," he declared very positively. "That sort of thing is +no child's work. That's what painters do when they're recording an +impression, and I've often looked in more wonder at such sketchy +outlines than at the finished product. To know how to get that +impression on paper so that it's unmistakable--I tell you that's +training and nothing else. I don't know enough about it to say it's +genius, too, yet I've had an artist friend tell me it cost him more to +learn to take the right sort of notes than to enlarge upon those notes +afterward." + +When he wrote to Anne next morning--he was not venturing to ask more of +her than one exchange a day--he told her what he thought about those +sketches: + + I've had that sheet pinned up at the foot of my bed ever since + it came, and I'm not yet tired of looking at it. You should + have seen Franz's face when I showed it to him. "Ze arteeste!" + he exclaimed, and laughed, and made eloquent gestures, by + means of which I judged he was trying to express you. He + looked as if he were trying to impress me with his own hair, + his eyes, his cheeks, his hands; but I knew well enough he + meant you. I gathered that he had been not ill pleased with + his visit to you, for he proposes another; in fact, I think he + would enjoy playing for you every day if you should care to + hear him so often. He does not much like to perform in the + wards, though he does it whenever I suggest it. He has + discovered that though they listen respectfully while he plays + his own beloved music, mostly they are happier when he gives + them a bit of American ragtime, or a popular song hit. His + distaste for that sort of thing is very funny. One would think + he had desecrated his beloved violin when he condescends to + it, for afterward he invariably gives it a special polishing + with the old silk handkerchief he keeps in the case--and Miss + Arden vows he washes his hands, too. Poor Franz! Your real + artist has a hard time of it in this prosaic world doesn't he? + +The note ended by saying boldly that King would like another sketch +sometime, and he even ventured to suggest that he would enjoy seeing a +picture of that row of white lilac trees at the edge of the garden where +Anne used to play. It was two days before he got this, and meanwhile a +box of water colours had come into requisition. When the sheet of heavy +paper came to King he lay looking at it with eyes which sparkled. + +At first sight it was just a blur of blues and greens, with irregular +patches of white, and gay tiny dashes of strong colour, pinks and +purples and yellows. But when, as Anne had bidden him, he held it at +arm's length he saw it all--the garden with its box-bordered beds full +of tall yellow tulips and pink and white and purple hyacinths--it was +easy to see that this was what they were, even from the dots and dashes +of colour; the hedge--it was a real hedge of white lilac trees, against +a spring sky all scudding clouds of gray. Like the sketch of Franz, its +charm lay entirely in suggestion, not in detail, but was none the less +real for that. + +There was one thing which, to King's observant eyes, stood out plainly +from the little wash drawing. This garden was a garden of the rich, not +of the poor. Just how he knew it so well he could hardly have told, +after all, for there was no hint of house, or wall, or even +summer-house, sundial, terrace, or other significant sign. Yet it was +there, and he doubted if Anne Linton knew it was there, or meant to have +it so. Perhaps it was that lilac hedge which seemed to show so plainly +the hand of a gardener in the planting and tending. The question +was--was it her own garden in which she had played, or the garden of her +father's employer? Had her father been that gardener, perchance? King +instantly rejected this possibility. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +WHITE LILACS + + +Burns, coming in to see King one day when the exchange of letters had +been going on for nearly a fortnight, announced that he might soon be +moved to his own home. + +King stared at him. "I'm not absolutely certain that I want to go till I +can get about on my own feet," he said slowly. + +Burns nodded. "I know, but that will be some time yet, and your +mother--well, I've put her off as long as I could, but without lying to +her I can't say it would hurt you now to be taken home. And lying's not +my long suit." + +"Of course not. And I suppose I ought to go; it would be a comfort to my +mother. But--" + +He set his lips and gave no further hint of his unwillingness to go +where he would be at the mercy of the maternal fondness which would +overwhelm him with the attentions he did not want. Besides--there was +another reason why, since he must for the present be confined somewhere, +he was loath to leave the friendly walls where there was now so much of +interest happening every day. Could he keep it happening at home? Not +without much difficulty, as he well foresaw. + +"Miss Linton's coming to us on Saturday," observed Burns carelessly, +strolling to the window with his hands in his pockets. + +"Is she? I didn't suppose she'd be strong enough just yet." King tried +to speak with equal carelessness, but the truth was that, with his life +bound, as it was at present, within the confines of this room, the +incidents of each day loomed large. + +"She's gaining remarkably fast. For all her apparent delicacy of +constitution when she came to us, I'm beginning to suspect that she's +the fortunate possessor of a good deal of vigour at the normal. She says +herself she was never ill before, and that's why she didn't give up +sooner--couldn't believe there was anything the matter. We can't make +her agree to stay with us a day longer than I say is a necessity for +safety." + +"Where does she want to go? Not back to that infernal book-agenting?" +There was a frown between King's well-marked brows. + +"Yes, I imagine that's what she intends. She's a very decided young +person, and there's not much use telling her what she must and must not +do. As for the book itself, it's pretty clever, my wife and Miss +Mathewson insist. They say the youngsters of the neighbourhood are +crazy over it. Bob knows it by heart, and even the Little-Un studies the +pictures half an hour at a time. If children were her buyers she'd have +no trouble." + +"Have a look at those, will you?" + +King reached for a leather writing case on the table at his elbow, took +out a pile of sheets, and began to hand them over one by one to Burns. + +"What's this? Hullo! Do you mean to say she did this? Well, I like her +impudence!" + +"So do I," laughed King, looking past Burns's shoulder at a saucy sketch +of the big Doctor himself evidently laying down the law about something, +by every vigorous line of protest in his attitude and the thrust of his +chin. Underneath was written: "Absolutely not! Haven't I said so a +thousand times?" + +"'Wad some power--'" murmured Burns. "Well, she seems to have the +'power.' I am rather a thunderer, I suppose. What's this next? My wife! +Jolly! that's splendid. Hasn't she caught a graceful pose though? +Ellen's to the life. Selina Arden? That's good--that's very good. +There's your conscientious nurse for you. And this, of herself? Ha! She +hasn't flattered herself any. She may have looked like that at one time, +but not now--hardly." + +"She's looking pretty well again, is she?" + +"Both pretty and well. We don't starve our patients on an exclusively +liquid diet the way we used to, and they don't come out of typhoid +looking half so badly in consequence. And she's been rounding out every +day for the last two weeks in fine shape. She's a great little girl, and +as full of spirit as a gray squirrel. I'm beginning to believe she's a +bit older than I would believe at first; that mind of hers is no +schoolgirl's; it's pretty mature. She says frankly she's twenty-four, +though she doesn't look over nineteen." + +"Is there any reason why I can't see her for a bit of a visit if she +goes Saturday?" asked King straightforwardly. It was always a +characteristic of his to go straight to a point in any matter; intrigue +and diplomacy were not for him in affairs which concerned a girl any +more than in those which pertained to his profession. "You see we've +been entertaining each other with letters and things, and it would seem +a pity not to meet--especially if she'll be leaving town before I'm +about." + +There was a curiously wistful look in his face as he said this, which +Burns understood. All along King had said almost nothing about the +torture his present helplessness was to him, but his friend knew. + +"Of course she'll come; we'll see to that. She's walking about a little +now, and by Saturday she can come down this corridor on her two small +feet." + +"See here--couldn't I sit up a bit to meet her?" + +"Not a sixteenth of a degree. You'll lie exactly as flat as you are now. +If it's any consolation I'll tell you that you look like a prostrate +man-angel seven feet long." + +"Thanks. I'd fire a pillow at you if I had one. I don't want to look +like an object for sympathy, that's all." + +Burns nodded understandingly. "Well, Jord," he said a moment later, +"will you go home on Saturday, too?" + +The two looked at each other. Then, "If you say so," King agreed. + +"All right. Then we'll get rid of two of our most interesting patients +on that happy day. Never mind--the mails will still carry--and Franz is +a faithful messenger. What's that, Miss Dwight? All right, I'll be +there." And he went out, with a gay nod and wave of the hand to the man +on the bed. + +This was on Monday. On Tuesday King offered his petition that Anne +Linton would pay him a visit before she left on Saturday. When the +answer came it warmed his heart more than anything he had yet had from +her: + + Of course I will come--only I want you to know that I shall be + dreadfully sorry to come walking, when you must still lie so + long on that poor back. Doctor Burns has told me how brave you + are, with all the pain you are still suffering. But I am + wonderfully glad to learn that he is so confident of your + complete recovery. Just to know that you can be your active + self again is wonderful when one thinks what might have + happened. I shall always remember you as you seemed to me the + day you brought me here. I was, of course, feeling pretty + limp, and the sight of you, in such splendid vigour, made me + intensely envious. And even though I see you now "unhorsed," I + shall not lose my first impression, because I know that by and + by you will be just like that again--looking and feeling as if + you were fit to conquer the world. + +It was the most personal note he had had from her, and he liked it very +much. He couldn't help hoping for more next day, and did his best to +secure it by the words he wrote in reply. But Wednesday's missive was +merely a merrily piquant description of the way she was trying her +returning strength by one expedition after another about her room. On +Thursday she sent him some very jolly sketches of her "packing up," and +on Friday she wrote hurriedly to say that she couldn't write, because +she was making little visits to other patients. + + * * * * * + +Jordan King had never been more exacting as to his dressing than on that +Saturday. He studied his face in the glass after an orderly had shaved +him, to make sure that the blue bloom it took but a few hours to +acquire had been properly subdued. He insisted on a particular silk +shirt to wear under the loose black-silk lounging robe which enveloped +him, and in which he was to be allowed to-day to lie upon the bed +instead of in it. His hair had to be brushed and parted three separate +times before he was satisfied. + +"I didn't know I was such a fop," he said, laughing, as Miss Dwight +rallied him on his preparations for receiving the ladies. "But somehow +it seems to make a difference when a man lies on his back. They have him +at a disadvantage. Now if you'll just give me a perfectly good +handkerchief I'll consider that the reception committee is ready. Thank +you. It must be almost time for them, isn't it?" + +For a young man who usually spent comparatively little of his time in +attentions to members of the other sex, but who was accustomed, +nevertheless, to be entirely at his ease with them, King acknowledged to +himself that he felt a curious excitement mounting in his veins as the +light footsteps of his guests approached. + +Mrs. Burns came first into his line of vision, wearing white from head +to foot, for it was early June and the weather had grown suddenly to be +like that of midsummer. Behind her followed not the black figure King's +memory had persistently pictured, but one also clad in white--the very +simple white of a plain linen suit, with a close little white hat drawn +over the bronze-red hair. Under this hat the eyes King remembered glowed +warmly, and now there was health in the face, which was so much more +charming than the one he recalled that for a moment he could hardly +believe the two the same. Yet--the profile, as she looked at Mrs. Burns, +who spoke first, was the one which had been stamped on his mind as one +not to be forgotten. + +She was looking at him now, and there was no pity in her bright +glance--he could not have borne to see it if it had been there. She came +straight up to the bed, her hand outstretched--her gloves were in the +other, as if she were on her way downstairs, as he presently found she +was. She spoke in a full, rich voice, very different from the weary one +he had heard before. + +"Do you know me?" she asked, smiling. + +"Almost I don't. Have you really been ill, or did you make it all up?" + +"I'm beginning to believe I did. I feel myself as if it must be all +dream. How glad I am to find you able to be dressed. Doctor Burns says +you will go home to-day, too." + +"This evening, I believe. I thought you were not going till then +either." + +"This very hour." She glanced at Mrs. Burns. "My good fairy begged that +I might go early, because it is her little son's birthday. I am to be +at a real party; think of that!" + +"The Little-Un's or Bob's?" King asked his other visitor. + +Bob was an adopted child, taken by Burns before his marriage, but the +little Chester's parents made no difference between them, and a birthday +celebration for the older boy was sure to be quite as much of an +occasion as for the two-year-old. + +"Bob's," Mrs. Burns explained. "He is ten; we can't believe it. And he +has set his heart on having Miss Linton at home for his party. He has +read her little book almost out of its covers, and she has been doing +some place-cards for his guests--the prettiest things!" Ellen opened a +small package she was carrying and showed King the cards. + +He gazed at them approvingly. "They're the jolliest I ever saw; the +youngsters will be crazy over them. For a convalescent it strikes me +Miss Linton has been the busiest known to the hospital." + +"You, yourself, have kept me rather busy, Mr. King," the girl observed. + +"So I have. I'm wondering what I'm to do when you are at Doctor Burns's +and I at home." + +She smiled. "I shall be there only a week if I keep on gaining as fast +as I am now." + +"A fortnight," interpolated Mrs. Burns, "is the earliest possible date +of your leaving us. And not then unless we think you fit." + +"Did you ever know of such kindness?" Anne Linton asked softly of King. +"To a perfect stranger?" + +He nodded. "Nothing you could tell me of their kindness could surprise +me. About that fortnight--would it be asking a great deal of you to keep +on sending me that daily note?" + +"Isn't there a telephone in your own room at home?" she asked. + +"Yes--how did you know?" + +"I guessed it. Wouldn't a little telephone talk do quite as well--or +better--than a letter?" + +"It would be very nice," admitted King. "But I should hate to do without +the letter. The days are each a month long at present, you know, and +each hour is equal to twenty-four. Make it a letter, too, will you, +please?" + +Miss Linton looked at Mrs. Burns. "Do you think circumstances still +alter cases?" she inquired. + +Her profile, as King caught it again, struck him as a perfect outline. +To think of this girl starting out again, travelling alone, selling +books from door to door! + +"I think you will be quite warranted in being very good to Mr. +King--while his hours drag as he describes," Ellen assented cordially. + +"As soon as I can sit up at any sort of decent angle I can do a lot of +work on paper," King asserted. "Then I'll make the time fly. +Meanwhile--it's all right." + +They talked together for a little, then King sent for Franz, who came +and played superbly, his eager eyes oftenest on Jordan King, like those +of an adoring and highly intelligent dog. Anne watched Franz, and King +watched Anne. Mrs. Burns, seeming to watch nobody, noted with +affectionate and somewhat concerned interest the apparent trend of the +whole situation. She could not help thinking, rather dubiously, of Mrs. +Alexander King, Jordan's mother. + +And, as things happen, it was just as Franz laid down his bow, after a +brilliant rendering of a great concerto, that Mrs. Alexander King came +in. She entered noiselessly, a slender, tall, black-veiled figure, as +scrupulously attired in her conventional deep mourning as if it were not +hot June weather, when some lightening of her sombre garb would have +seemed not only rational but kind to those who must observe her. + +"Oh, mother!" King exclaimed. "In all this heat? I didn't expect you. +I'm afraid you ought not to have come." + +She bent over him. "The heat has nothing to do with my feelings toward +my son. I couldn't neglect you, dear." + +She greeted Ellen cordially, who presented Miss Linton. King lost +nothing of his mother's polite scrutiny of the girl, who bore it without +the slightest sign of recognizing it beyond the lowering of her lashes +after the first long look of the tall lady had continued a trifle beyond +the usual limit. Book agent though she might be, Miss Linton's manner +was faultless, a fact King noted with curious pride in his new +friend--whom, though he himself was meeting her for but the second time, +he somehow wanted to stand any social test which might be put upon her. +And he well knew that his lady mother could apply such tests if anybody +could. + +In his heart he was saying that it seemed hard luck, he must say +good-bye to Anne Linton in that mother's presence. There was small +chance to make it a leave-taking of even ordinary good fellowship +beneath that dignified, quietly appraising eye, to say nothing of +endowing it with a quality which should in some measure compensate for +the fact that it might be a parting for a long time to come. However +much or little the exchange of notes during these last weeks might have +come to mean to Jordan King, aside from the diversion they had offered +to one sorely oppressed of mind and body, he resented being now forced +to those restrained phrases of farewell which he well knew were the only +ones that would commend him to his mother's approval. + +Mrs. Burns and Miss Linton rose to go, summoned by Red Pepper himself, +who was to take them. In the momentary surge of greeting and small talk +which ensued, King surreptitiously beckoned Anne near. He looked up with +the direct gaze of the man who intends to make the most of the little +that Fate sends him. + +"Letters are interesting things, aren't they?" he asked. + +"Very. And when they are written by a man lying on his back, who doesn't +know when he is down, they are stimulating things," she answered; and +there was that in the low tone of her voice and the look of her eyes +which was as if she had pinned a medal for gallantry on the breast of +the black silk robe. + +Mrs. Alexander King looked at her son--and moved nearer. She addressed +Anne. "I am more than glad to see, Miss Linton," said she, "that you are +fully recovered. Please let me wish you much success in your work. I +suppose we shall not see you again after you leave Mrs. Burns." + +"No, Mrs. King," responded Anne's voice composedly. "Thank you for that +very kind wish." + +She turned to the prostrate one once more. She put her hand in his, and +he held it fast for an instant, and, in spite of his mother's gaze, it +was an appreciable instant longer than formality called for. + +"I shall hope to see you again," he said distinctly, and the usual +phrase acquired a meaning it does not always possess. + +Then they were gone, and he had only the remembrance of Anne's parting +look, veiled and maidenly, but the comprehending look of a real friend +none the less. + +"My dear boy, you must be quite worn out with all this company in this +exhausting weather," murmured Mrs. King, laying a cool hand on a +decidedly hot brow. + +The brow moved beneath her hand, on account of a contraction of the +smooth forehead, as if with pain. "I really hadn't noticed the weather, +mother," replied her son's voice with some constraint in it. + +"You must rest now, dear. People who are perfectly well themselves are +often most inconsiderate of an invalid, quite without intention, of +course." + +"If I never receive any less consideration than I have had here, I shall +do very well for the rest of my life." + +"I know; they have all been very kind. But I shall be so relieved when +I can have you at home, where you will not feel obliged to have other +patients on your mind. In your condition it is too much to expect." + +Jordan King was a good son, and he loved his mother deeply. But there +were moments when, as now, if he could have laid a kind but firm hand +upon her handsome, emotional mouth, he would have been delighted to do +so. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +EXPERT DIAGNOSIS + + +"What would you give for a drive with me this morning?" Burns surveyed +his patient, now dressed and downstairs upon a pillared rear porch, +wistfulness in his eyes but determination on his lips. + +"Do you mean it?" + +"Yes. We may as well try what that back will stand. Most of the drive +will be sitting still in front of houses, anyhow, and in your plaster +jacket you're pretty safe from injury." + +"Thank heaven!" murmured Jordan King fervently. + +Two minutes later he was beside Burns in the Doctor's car, staring +eagerly ahead, lifting his hat now and then as some one gave him +interested greeting from passing motor. More than once Burns was obliged +to bring his car to a short standstill, so that some delighted friend +might grasp King's hand and tell him how good it seemed to see him out. +With one and all the young man was very blithe, though he let them do +most of the talking. They all told him heartily that he was looking +wonderfully well, while they ignored with the understanding of the +intelligent certain signs which spoke of physical and mental strain. + +"Your friends," Burns remarked as they went on after one particularly +pleasant encounter, "seem to belong to the class who possess brains. I +wish it were a larger class. Every day I find some patient suffering +from depression caused by fool comments from some well-meaning +acquaintance." + +"I've had a few of those, too," King acknowledged. + +"I'll wager you have. Well, among a certain class of people there seems +to be an idea that you can't show real sympathy without telling the +victim that he's looking very ill, and that you have known several such +cases which didn't recover. I have one little woman on my list who would +have been well long ago if she hadn't had so many loving friends to +impress her with the idea that her case was desperate. I talk Dutch to +such people now and then, when I get the chance, but it doesn't do much +good. Sometimes I get so thundering mad I can't stand it, and then I rip +out something that makes me a lasting enemy." + +"You get some comfort out of the explosion, anyhow," King commented, +with a glance at the strong profile beside him. "Besides, you may do +more good than you know. Anybody who had had a good dressing down from +you once wouldn't be likely to forget it in a hurry." + +Burns laughed at this, as they stopped in front of a house. King had a +half-hour wait while his friend was inside. The car stood in heavy +shade, and he was very comfortable. He took a letter from his pocket as +he sat, a letter which looked as if it had been many times unfolded, and +read it once more, his face very sober as his eyes followed the familiar +lines: + + DEAR MR. KING: + + I was very, very sorry to go away without seeing you to say + good-bye after our interesting correspondence. Mrs. Burns and + I had such a pleasant visit with your mother, in your absence, + that we felt rewarded for our call, and it was good to know + that you could be out, yet of course we were very + disappointed. I do hope that all will go well with you, and + that very rapidly, for I can guess how eager you are to be at + work. + + Of course once I am off on my travels I shall have no time for + letters. No, that isn't quite frank, is it? Well, I will be + truthful and say honestly that I am sure it is not best that I + should keep on writing. I am glad if the letters have, as you + say, helped you through the worst of the siege; they surely + have helped me. But now--our ways part. Sometime I may give + you a hail from somewhere--when I am lonely and longing to + know how you get on. And sometime I may be back at my old + home. But wherever I am I shall never forget you, Jordan King, + for you have put something into my life which was not there + before and I am the better for it. As for you--your life will + not be one whit the less big and efficient for this trying + experience; it will be bigger, I think, and finer. I am glad, + glad I have known you. + + ANNE LINTON. + +For the hundredth time King felt his heart sink as he thought of that +prevented last interview. His mother had prevented it. It was perfectly +true that he was out, and away from home--out in a wheeled chair, which +had been pushed by Franz through a gap in the hedge between the Kings' +lawn and the Wentworths' next door. Just on the other side of that hedge +the chair had paused, where Sally Wentworth, his friend of long +standing, was serving tea to a little group of young people, all +intimates and all delighted to have the invalid once more in their +midst. Under the group of great copper beeches which made of that corner +of the Wentworth lawn a summer drawing room, King had sat in his chair +drinking tea and listening to gay chatter--and wondering why he had not +been able to get Anne Linton on the telephone so far that day. And at +that very time, so he now bitterly reflected, she and Mrs. Burns had +made their call upon him, only to be told by Mrs. King that he was +"out." + +His mother was unquestionably a lady, and she had told the truth; he +could not conceive of her doing otherwise. He knew that she undoubtedly, +quite as Anne had said, had made the call a pleasant one. But she had +known that he was within a stone's throw of the house, and that he would +be bitterly disappointed not to be summoned. She had not mentioned to +him the fact of the call at all until next day--when Anne Linton had +been gone a full two hours upon her train. Then, when he had called up +Mrs. Burns, in a fever of haste to learn what had happened and what +there might yet be a chance of happening, he had discovered that Ellen +herself had tried three times to get him, upon the telephone, and had at +last realized--though this she did not say--that it was not intended +that she should. + +King understood his mother perfectly. She would scorn directly to +deceive him, yet to intrigue quietly but effectively against him in such +a case as this she would consider only her duty. She had seen clearly +his interest in the stranger, unintroduced and unvouched for, taken in +by kind people in an emergency, and though showing unquestionable marks +of breeding, none the less a stranger. She had feared for him, in his +present vulnerable condition; and she had done her part in preventing +that final parting which might have contained elements of danger. That +was all there was to it. + +For the present King was helpless, and there could be no possible use in +reproaching his mother for her action--or lack of action. Once let him +get up on his feet, his own master once more--then it would be of use to +talk. And talk he would some day. Also he would act. Meanwhile-- + +Red Pepper Burns came out of the house and scrutinized his friend and +patient closely as he approached. "Want to go on, or shall I take you +home?" he inquired. + +"Take me on--anywhere--everywhere! Something inside will break loose if +you don't." King spoke with a smothered note of irritation new to him in +Burns's experience. + +"You've about reached the limit, have you?" The question was +straightforward, matter-of-fact in tone, but King knew the sympathy +behind it. + +"I rather have," the young man admitted. "I'm ashamed to own it." + +"You needn't be. It's a wonder you haven't reached it sooner; I should +have. Well, if you stand this drive pretty well to-day you ought to come +on fast. With that back, you may be thankful you're getting off as +easily as you are." + +"I am thankful--everlastingly thankful. It's just--" + +"I know. Blow off some of that steam; it won't hurt you. Here we are on +the straight road. I'll open up and give you a taste of what poor Henley +felt the first time his crippled body and his big, uncrippled spirit +tasted the delight of 'Speed.' Remember?" + +"Indeed I do. Oh, I'm not complaining. You understand that, Red?" + +"Of course I understand--absolutely. And I understand that you need just +what I say--to blow off a lot of steam. Hurt you or not, I'm going to +let loose for a couple of miles and blow it off for you." + +In silence, broken only by the low song of the motor as it voiced its +joy in the widening license to show its power, the two men took the wind +in their faces as the car shot down the road, at the moment a clear +highway for them. King had snatched off his hat, and his dark hair blew +wildly about his forehead, while his eyes watched the way as intently as +if he had been driving himself, though his body hardly tensed, so +complete was his confidence in the steady hands on the wheel. Faster and +faster flew the car, until the speed indicator touched a mark seldom +passed by King himself at his most reckless moments. His lips, set at +first, broke into a smile as the pointing needle circled the dial, and +his eyes, if any could have seen them, would have told the relief there +was for him in escape by flight, though only temporary, from the +grinding pull of monotony and disablement. + +At the turn ahead appeared obstruction, and Burns was obliged to begin +slowing down. When the car was again at its ordinary by no means slow +pace, King spoke: + +"Bless you for a mind reader! That was bully, and blew away a lot of +distemper. If you'll just do it again going back I'll submit to the +afternoon of a clam in a bed of mud." + +"Good. We'll beat that record going back, if we break the speedometer. +Racing with time isn't supposed to be the game for a convalescent, but +I'm inclined to think it's the dose you need, just the same. I expect, +Jord, that the first time you pull on a pair of rubber boots and go to +climbing around a big concrete dam somewhere your heart will break for +joy." + +"My heart will stand anything, so that it's action." + +"Will it? I thought it might be a bit damaged. It's had a good deal of +reaction to stand lately, I'm afraid." + +There was silence for a minute, then King spoke: + +"Red, you're a wizard." + +"Not much of a one. It doesn't take extraordinary powers of penetration +to guess that a flame applied to a bundle of kindling will cause a fire. +And when you keep piling on the fuel something's likely to get burned." + +"Did I pile on the fuel?" + +"You sure did. If there had been gunpowder under the kindling you could +have expected an explosion--and a wreck." + +"There's no wreck." + +"No? I thought there might be--somewhere." + +King spoke quickly. "Do you think I carried it too far?" + +"I think you carried it some distance--for an invalid's diversion." + +The young man flushed hotly. "I was genuinely interested and I saw no +harm. If there's any harm done it's to myself, and I can stand that. I'm +not conceited enough to imagine that a broken-backed cripple could make +any lasting impression." + +Burns turned and surveyed his companion with some amusement. "Do you +consider that a description of yourself?" + +"I certainly do." Jordan King's strong young jaw took on a grim +expression. + +"Know this then"--Burns spoke deliberately--"there's not a sane girl who +liked you well enough before your accident to marry you who wouldn't +marry you now." + +"That's absurd. Women want men, not cripples." + +"You're no cripple. Stop using that term." + +"What else? A man condemned to wear a plaster jacket for at least a +year." King evidently did his best not to speak bitterly. + +"Bosh! Suppose the same thing happened to me. Would you look on me +askance for the rest of my days, no matter what man's job I kept on +tackling? Besides, the plaster jacket's only a precaution. You wouldn't +disintegrate without it." + +King looked at Red Pepper Burns and smiled in spite of himself. "I'm +glad to hear that, I'm sure. As for looking at you askance--you are you, +R.P. Burns." + +"Apply the same logic to yourself. You are you, and will continue to be +you, plus some assets you haven't had occasion to acquire before in the +way of dogged endurance, control of mind, and such-like qualities, bred +of need for them. You will be more to us all than you ever were, and +that's saying something. And the back's going to be a perfectly good +back; give it time. As for--if you don't mind my saying it--that +invalid's diversion, I don't suppose it's hurt you any. What I'm +concerned for is the hurt it may have done somebody else. I don't need +to tell you that it wasn't possible for Ellen and me to have that little +girl on our hearts all that time and not get mightily interested in her. +She's the real thing, too, we're convinced, and we care a good deal what +happens to her next." + +Jordan King drew a deep breath. "So do I." + +Burns gave him a quick look. "That's good. But you let her go away +without making sure of keeping any hold on her. You don't know where she +is now." + +King shot him a return look. "That wasn't my fault. That was hard luck." + +"I don't think much of luck. Get around it." + +"I'll do my best, I promise you. But I wish you'd tell me--" + +"Yes?" + +"--why you should think I had done her any harm. Heaven knows I wouldn't +do that for my right arm!" + +"She didn't make a sign--not one--of any injury, I assure you. She's a +gallant little person, if ever there was one--and a thoroughbred, though +she may be as poor as a church mouse. No, I should never have guessed +it. She went away with all sails set and the flags flying. All I know is +what my wife says." + +"Please tell me." + +"I'm not sure it will be good for you." Burns smiled as he drew up +beside a house. "However--if you will have it--she says Miss Anne Linton +took away with her every one of your numerous letters, notes, and even +calling cards which had been sent with flowers. She also took a halftone +snapshot of you out at the Coldtown dam, cut from a newspaper, +published the Sunday after your accident. The sun was in your eyes and +you were scowling like a fiend; it was the worst picture of you +conceivable." + +"Girls do those things, I suppose," murmured King with a rising colour. + +"Granted. And now and then one does it for a purpose which we won't +consider. But a girl of the type we feel sure Miss Linton to be +carefully destroys all such things from men she doesn't care +for--particularly if she has started on a trip and is travelling light. +Of course she may have fooled us all and be the cleverest little +adventuress ever heard of. But I'd stake a good deal on Ellen's +judgment. Women don't fool women much, you know, whatever they do with +men." + +He disappeared into a small brown house, and King was left once more +with his own thoughts. When Burns came out they drove on again with +little attempt at conversation, for Burns's calls were not far apart. +King presently began to find himself growing weary, and sat very quietly +in his seat during the Doctor's absences, experiencing, as he had done +many times of late, a sense of intense contempt for himself because of +his own physical weakness. In all his sturdy life he had never known +what it was to feel not up to doing whatever there might be to be done. +Fatigue he had known, the healthy and not unpleasant fatigue which +follows vigorous and prolonged labour, but never weakness or pain, +either of body or of mind. Now he was suffering both. + +"Had about enough?" Burns inquired as he returned to the car for the +eighth time. "Shall I take you home?" + +"I'm all right." + +Burns gave him a sharp glance. "To be sure you are. But we'll go home +nevertheless. The rest of my work is at the hospital anyhow." + +As they were approaching the long stretch of straight road to which King +had looked forward an hour ago, but which he was disgusted to find +himself actually rather dreading now, a great closed car of luxurious +type, and bearing upon its top considerable travelling luggage, slowed +down as it neared, and a liveried chauffeur held up a detaining hand. +Burns stopped to answer a series of questions as to the best route +toward a neighbouring city. There were matters of road mending and +detours to be made plain to the inquirers, so the detention occupied a +full five minutes, during which the chauffeur got down and came to +Burns's side with a road map, with which the two wrestled after the +fashion usually made necessary by such aids to travel. + +During this period Jordan King underwent a disturbing experience. +Looking up with his usual keen glance, one trained to observe whatever +might be before it, he took in at a sweep the nature of the party in the +big car. That it was a rich man's car, and that its occupants were those +who naturally belonged in it, there was no question. From the owner +himself, an aristocrat who looked the part, as not all aristocrats do, +to those who were presumably his wife, his son, and daughters, all were +of the same type. Simply dressed as if for a long journey, they yet +diffused that aroma of luxury which cannot be concealed. + +The presumable son, a tall, hawk-nosed young man who sat beside the +chauffeur, turned to speak to those inside, and King's glance followed +his. He thus caught sight of a profile next the open window and close by +him. He stared at it, his heart suddenly standing still. Who was this +girl with the bronze-red hair, the perfect outline of nose and mouth and +chin, the sea-shell colouring? Even as he stared she turned her head, +and her eyes looked straight into his. + +He had seen Miss Anne Linton only twice, and on the two occasions she +had seemed to him like two entirely different girls. But this girl--was +she not that one who had come to visit him in his room at the hospital, +full of returning health and therefore of waxing beauty and vigour? + +For one instant he was sure it was she, no matter how strange it was +that she should be here, in this rich man's car--unless--But he had no +time to think it out before he was overwhelmed by the indubitable +evidence that, whoever this girl was, she did not know him. Her +eyes--apparently the same wonderful eyes which he could now never +forget--looked into his without a sign of recognition, and her +colour--the colour of radiantly blooming youth--did not change +perceptibly under his gaze. And after that one glance, in which she +seemed to survey him closely, after the manner of girls, as if he were +an interesting specimen, her eyes travelled to Red Pepper Burns and +rested lightly on him, as if he, too, were a person of but passing +significance to the motor traveller looking for diversion after many +dusty miles of more or less monotonous sights. + +King continued to gaze at her with a steadiness somewhat indefensible +except as one considers that all motorists, meeting on the highway, are +accustomed to take note of one another as comrades of the road. He was +not conscious that the other young people in the car also regarded him +with eyes of interest, and if he had he would not have realized just +why. His handsome, alert face, its outlines slightly sharpened by his +late experiences, his well-dressed, stalwart figure, carried no hint of +the odious plaster jacket which to his own thinking put him outside the +pale of interest for any one. + +But it could not be Anne Linton; of course it could not! What should a +poor little book agent be doing here in a rich man's car--unless she +were in his employ? And somehow the fact that this girl was not in any +man's employ was established by the manner in which the young man on the +front seat spoke to her, as he now did, plainly heard by King. Though +all he said was some laughing, more or less witty thing about this being +the nineteenth time, by actual count since breakfast, that a question of +roads and routes had arisen, he spoke as to an equal in social status, +and also--this was plainer yet--as to one on whom he had a more than +ordinary claim. And King listened for her answer--surely he would know +her voice if she spoke? One may distrust the evidence of one's eyes when +it comes to a matter of identity, but one's ears are not to be deceived. + +But King's ears, stretched though they might be, metaphorically +speaking, like those of a mule, to catch the sound of that voice, caught +nothing. She replied to the young man on the front seat only by a nod +and a smile. Then, as the chauffeur began to fold up his road map, +thanking Burns for his careful directions, and both cars were on the +point of starting, the object of King's heart-arresting scrutiny looked +at him once again. Her straight gaze, out of such eyes as he had never +seen but on those two occasions, met his without flinching--a long, +steady, level look, which lasted until, under Burns's impatient hand, +the smaller car got under motion and began to move. Even then, though +she had to turn her head a little, she let him hold her gaze--as, of +course, he was nothing loath to do, being intensely and increasingly +stirred by the encounter with its baffling hint of mystery. Indeed, she +let him hold that gaze until it was not possible for her longer to +maintain her share of the exchange without twisting about in the car. As +for King, he did not scruple to twist, as far as his back would let him, +until he had lost those eyes from his view. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +JORDAN IS A MAN + + +When King turned back again to face the front his heart was thumping +prodigiously. Almost he was certain it had been Anne Linton; yet the +explanation--if there were one--was not to be imagined. And if it had +been Anne Linton, why should she have refused to know him? There could +have been little difficulty for her in identifying him, even though she +had seen him last lying flat on his back on a hospital bed. And if there +had been a chance of her not knowing him--there was Red Pepper. + +It was Anne. It could not be Anne. Between these two convictions King's +head was whirling. Whoever it was, she had dared to look straight into +his eyes in broad daylight at a distance of not more than four feet. He +had seen into the very depths of her own bewildering beauty, and the +encounter, always supposing her to be the person of whom he had thought +continuously for four months, was a thing to keep him thinking about her +whether he would or no. + +"Anything wrong?" asked Burns's voice in its coolest tones. "I suspect +I was something of an idiot to give you such a big dose of this at the +first trial." + +"I'm all right, thank you." And King sat up very straight in the car to +prove it. Nevertheless, when he was at home again he was not sorry to be +peremptorily ordered to lie supine on his back for at least three hours. + +It was not long after this that King was able to bring about the thing +he most desired--a talk with Mrs. Burns. She came to see him one July +day, at his request, at an hour when he knew his mother must be away. +With her he went straight to his point; the moment the first greetings +were over and he had been congratulated on his ability to spend a few +hours each day at his desk, he began upon the subject uppermost in his +thoughts. He told her the story of his encounter with the girl in the +car, and asked her if she thought it could have been Miss Linton. + +She looked at him musingly. "Do you prefer to think it was or was not?" +she asked. + +"Are you going to answer accordingly?" + +"Not at all. I was wondering which I wanted to think myself. I wish I +had been with you. I should have known." + +"Would you?" King spoke eagerly. "Would you mind telling me how?" + +"I can't tell you how. Of course I came to know her looks much better +than you; it really isn't strange that after seeing her only twice you +couldn't be sure. I don't think any change of dress or environment could +have hidden her from me. The question is, of course, why--if it was +she--she should have chosen not to seem to know you--unless--" + +"Yes--" + +She looked straight at him. "Unless--she is not the poor girl she seemed +to be. And that explanation doesn't appeal to me. I have known of poor +girls pretending to be rich, but I have never, outside of a sensational +novel, known a rich girl to pretend to be poor, unless for a visit to a +poor quarter for charitable purposes. What possible object could there +be in a girl's going about selling books unless she needed to do it? And +she allowed me--" She stopped, shaking her head. "No, Jordan, that was +not our little friend--or if it was, she was in that car by some curious +chance, not because she belonged there." + +"So you're going on trusting her?" was King's abstract of these +reflections. He scanned her closely. + +She nodded. "Until I have stronger proof to the contrary than your +looking into a pair of beautiful eyes. Have you never observed, my +friend, how many pairs of beautiful eyes there are in the world?" + +He shook his head. "I haven't bothered much about them, except now and +then for a bit of nonsense making." + +"But this pair you, too, are going to go on trusting?" + +"I am. If that girl was Miss Linton she had a reason for not speaking. +If it wasn't"--he drew a deep breath--"well, I don't know exactly how to +explain that!" + +"I do," said Ellen Burns, smiling. "She thought she would never see you +again, and she yielded to a girlish desire to look hard at--a real man." + +It was this speech which, in spite of himself, lingered in King's mind +after she was gone, for the balm there was in it--a balm she had +perfectly understood and meant to put there. Well she guessed what his +disablement meant to him--in spite of the hope of complete recovery--how +little he seemed to himself like the man he was before. + +Certainly it was nothing short of real manhood which prompted the talk +he had with his mother one day not long after this. She brought him a +letter, and she was scrutinizing it closely as she came toward him. He +was fathoms deep in his work and did not observe her until she spoke. + +"Whom can you possibly have as a correspondent in this town, my son?" +she inquired, her eyes upon the postmark, which was that of a small city +a hundred miles away. It was one in which lived an old school friend of +whom she had never spoken, to her recollection, in King's hearing, for +the reason that the family had since suffered deep disgrace in the eyes +of the world, and she had been inexpressibly shocked thereby. + +King looked up. He was always hoping for a word from Anne Linton, and +now, suddenly, it had come, just a week after the encounter with the +girl in the car--which had been going, as it happened, in the opposite +direction from the city of the postmark. He recognized instantly the +handwriting upon the plain, white business envelope--an interesting +handwriting, clear and black, without a single feminine flourish. He +took the letter in his hand and studied it. + +"It is from Miss Linton," he said, "and I am very glad to hear from her. +It is the first time she has written since she went away--over two +months ago." + +He spoke precisely as he would have spoken if it had been a letter from +any friend he had. It was like him to do this, and the surer another man +would have been to try to conceal his interest in the letter the surer +was Jordan King to proclaim it. The very fact that this announcement was +certain to rouse his mother's suspicion that the affair was of moment +to him was enough to make him tell her frankly that she was quite right. + +He laid the letter on the desk before him unopened, and went on with his +work. Mrs. King stood still and looked at him a moment before moving +quietly away, and disturbance was written upon her face. She knew her +son's habit of finishing one thing before he took up another, but she +understood also that he wished to be alone when he should read this +letter. She left the room, but soon afterward she softly passed the open +door, and she saw that the letter lay open before him and that his head +was bent over it. The words before him were these: + + DEAR MR. KING: + + I had not meant to write to you for much longer than this, but + I find myself so anxious to know how you are that I am + yielding to the temptation. I may as well confess that I am + just a little lonely to-night, in spite of having had a pretty + good day with the little book--rather better than usual. + Sometimes I almost wish I hadn't spent that fortnight with + Mrs. Burns, I find myself missing her so. And yet, how can one + be sorry for any happy thing that comes to one? As I look back + on them now, though I am well and strong again, those days of + convalescence in the hospital stand out as among the happiest + in my life. The pleasant people, the flowers, the notes, all + the incidents of that time, not the least among them Franz's + music, stay in my memory like a series of pictures. + + Do you care to tell me how you come on? If so you may write to + me, care of general delivery, in this town, at any time for + the next five days. I shall be so glad to hear. + + ANNE LINTON. + +King looked up as his mother approached. He folded the letter and put +it into his pocket. + +"Mother," he said, "I may as well tell you something. You won't approve +of it, and that is why I must tell you. From the hour I first saw Miss +Linton I've been unable to forget her. I know, by every sign, that she +is all she seems to be. I can't let her go out of my life without an +effort to keep her. I'm going to keep her, if I can." + +Two hours later R.P. Burns, M.D., was summoned to the bedside of Mrs. +Alexander King. He sat down beside the limp form, felt the pulse, laid +his hand upon the shaking shoulder of the prostrate lady, who had gone +down before her son's decision, gentle though his manner with her had +been. She had argued, prayed, entreated, wept, but she had not been able +to shake his purpose. Now she was reaping the consequences of her +agitation. + +"My son, my only boy," she moaned as Burns asked her to tell him her +trouble, "after all these years of his being such a man, to change +suddenly into a willful boy again! It's inconceivable; it's not +possible! Doctor, you must tell him, you must argue with him. He can't +marry this girl, he can't! Why, he doesn't even know the place she comes +from, to say nothing of who she is--her family, her position in life. +She must be a common sort of creature to follow him up so; you know she +must. I can't have it; I will not have it! You must tell him so!" + +Burns considered. There was a curious light in his eyes. "My dear lady," +he said gently at length, "Jordan is a man; you can't control him. He is +a mighty manly man, too--as his frankly telling you his intention +proves. Most sons would have kept their plans to themselves, and simply +have brought the mother home her new daughter some day without any +warning. As for Miss Linton, I assure you she is a lady--as it seems to +me you must have seen for yourself." + +"She is clever; she could act the part of a lady, no doubt," moaned the +one who possessed a clear title to that form of address. "But she might +be anything. Why didn't she tell you something of herself? Jordan could +not say that you knew the least thing about her. People with fine family +records are not so mysterious. There is something wrong about her--I +know it--I know it! Oh, I can't have it so; I can't! You must stop it, +Doctor; you must!" + +"She spent two weeks in our home," Burns said. "During that time there +was no test she did not stand. Come, Mrs. King, you know that it doesn't +take long to discover the flaw in any metal. She rang true at every +touch. She's a girl of education, of refinement--why, Ellen came to feel +plenty of real affection for her before she left us, and you know that +means a good deal. As for the mystery about her, what's that? Most +people talk too much about their affairs. If, as we think, she has been +brought up in circumstances very different from these we find her in, it +isn't strange that she doesn't want to tell us all about the change." + +But his patient continued to moan, and he could give her no consolation. +For a time he sat quietly beside the couch where lay the long and +slender form, and he was thinking things over. The room was veiled in a +half twilight, partly the effect of closing day and partly that of drawn +shades. The deep and sobbing breaths continued until suddenly Burns's +hand was laid firmly upon the hand which clutched a handkerchief wet +with many tears. He spoke now in a new tone, one she had never before +heard from him addressed to herself: + +"This," he said, "isn't worthy of you, my friend." + +It was as if her breath were temporarily suspended while she listened. +People were not accustomed to tell Mrs. Alexander King that her course +of action was unworthy of her. + +"No man or woman has a right to dictate to another what he shall do, +provided the thing contemplated is not an offense against another. You +have no right to set your will against your son's when it is a matter +of his life's happiness." + +She seized on this last phrase. "But that's why I do oppose him. I want +him to be happy--heaven knows I do! He can't be happy--this way." + +"How do you know that? You don't know it. You are just as likely to make +him bitterly unhappy by opposing him as by letting him alone. And I can +tell you one thing surely, Mrs. King: Jordan will do as he wishes in +spite of you, and all you will gain by opposition will be not a gain, +but a sacrifice--of his love." + +She shivered. "How can you think he will be so selfish?" + +Burns had some ado to keep his rising temper down. "Selfish--to marry +the woman he wants instead of the woman you want? That's an old, old +argument of selfish mothers." + +The figure on the couch stiffened. "Doctor Burns! How can you speak so, +when all I ask for is my son's best good?" The words ended in a wail. + +"You think you do, dear lady. What you really want is--your own way." + +Suddenly she sat up, staring at him. His clear gaze met her clouded one, +his sane glance confronted her wild one. She lifted her shaking hand +with a gesture of dismissal. But there was a new experience in store +for Jordan King's mother. + +Burns leaned forward, and took the delicate hand of his hysterical +patient in his own. + +"No, no," he said, smiling, "you don't mean that; you are not quite +yourself. I am Jordan's friend and yours. I have said harsh things to +you; it was the only way. I love your boy as I would a younger brother, +and I want you to keep him because I can understand what the loss of him +would mean to you. But you must know that you can't tie a man's heart to +you with angry commands, nor with tears and reproaches. You can tie +it--tight--by showing sympathy and understanding in this crisis of his +life. Believe me, I know." + +His tone was very winning; his manner--now that he had said his +say--though firm, was gentle, and he held her hand in a way that did +much toward quieting her. Many patients in danger of losing self-control +had known the strengthening, soothing touch of that strong hand. Red +Pepper was not accustomed to misuse this power of his, which came very +near being hypnotic, but neither did he hesitate to use it when the +occasion called as loudly as did this one. + +And presently Mrs. King was lying quietly on her couch again, her eyes +closed, the beating of her agitated pulses slowly quieting. And Burns, +bending close, was saying before he left her: "That's a brave woman. +Ladies are lovely things, but I respect women more. Only a mighty fine +one could be the mother of my friend Jord, and I knew she would meet +this issue like the Spartan she knows how to be." + +If, as he stole away downstairs--leaving his patient in the hands of a +somewhat long-suffering maid--he was saying to himself things of a quite +different sort, let him not be blamed for insincerity. He had at the +last used the one stimulant against which most of us are powerless: the +call to be that which we believe another thinks us. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE SURGICAL FIRING LINE + + +"Len, I've something great to tell you," announced Red Pepper Burns, one +evening in August, as he came out from his office where he had been +seeing a late patient, and joined his wife, who was wandering about her +garden in the twilight. "To-day I've had the compliment of my life. Whom +do you think I'm to operate on day after to-morrow?" + +She looked up at him as he stood, his hands in his pockets, looking down +at her. In her sheer white frock, through which gleamed her neck and +arms, her hands full of pink and white snapdragon, she was worth +consideration. Her eyes searched his face and found there a curious +exultation of a very human sort. "How could I guess? Tell me." + +"Who should you say was the very last man on earth to do me the honour +of trusting me in a serious emergency?" + +She turned away her head, gazing down at a fragrant border of +mignonette, while he watched her, a smile on his lips. She looked up +again. "I can't think, Red. It seems to me everybody trusts you." + +"Not by a long shot, or the rest of the profession would stand idle. But +there's one man who I should have said, to use a time-honoured phrase, +wouldn't let me operate on a sick cat. And he's the man who is going to +put his life in my hands Wednesday morning at ten o'clock. Len, if I am +ever on my mettle to do a perfect job, it'll be then!" + +"Of course. But who--" + +"I should think the name would leap to your lips. Who's mine ancient +enemy, the man who has fought me by politely sneering at me, and +circumventing me when he could, ever since I began practice, and whom +I've fought back in my way? Why, Len--" + +Her dark eyes grew wide. "Red! Not--Doctor Van Horn?" + +"Even so." + +"Oh, Red! That is a compliment--and more than a compliment. But I should +never have thought of him somehow because, I suppose--" + +"Because nobody ever thinks of a doctor's being sick or needing an +operation. But doctors do--sometimes--and usually pretty badly, too, +before they will submit to it. Van Horn's in dreadful shape, and has +been keeping it dark--until it's got the upper hand of him completely. +Mighty plucky the way he's been going on with his work, with trouble +gnawing at his vitals." + +"How did he come to call you?" + +"That's what I'm wondering. But call me he did, yesterday, and I've seen +him twice since. And when I told him what had to be done he took it like +a soldier without wincing. But when he said he wanted me to do the trick +you could have knocked me down with a lead pencil. My word, Len, I have +been doing Van an injustice all these years! The real stuff is in him, +after all, and plenty of it, too." + +"It is he who has done you the injustice," Ellen said with a little lift +of the head. + +"I know I have given you reason to think so--the times I've come home +raving mad at some cut of his. But, Len, that's all past and he wipes it +out by trusting me now. The biggest thing I've had against him was not +his knifing me but his apparent toadying to the rich and influential. +But there's another side to that and I see it now. Some people have to +be coddled, and though it goes against my grain to do it, I don't know +why a man who can be diplomatic and winning, like Van Horn, hasn't his +place just as much as a rough rider like me. Anyhow, the thing now is to +pull him through his operation, and if I can do it--well, Van and I +will be on a new basis, and a mighty comfortable one it will be." + +His voice was eager and his wife understood just how his pulses were +thrilling, as do those of the born surgeon, at the approach of a great +opportunity. + +"I'm very, very glad, dear," Ellen said warmly. "It's a real triumph of +faith over jealousy, and I don't wonder you are proud of such a +commission. I know you will bring him through." + +"If I don't--but that's not to be thought of. It's a case that calls for +extremely delicate surgery and a sure hand, but the ground is plainly +mapped out and only some absolutely unforeseen complication is to be +dreaded. And when it comes to those complications--well, Len, sometimes +I think it must be the good Lord who works a man's brain for him at such +crises, and makes it pretty nearly superhuman. It's hard to account any +other way, sometimes, for the success of the quick decisions you make +under necessity that would take a lot of time to work out if you had the +time. Oh, it's a great game, Len, no doubt of that--when you win. And +when you lose"--he stopped short, staring into the shadows where a row +of dark-leaved laurel bushes shut away the garden in a soft +seclusion--"well, that's another story, a heartbreaking story." + +He was silent for a minute, then, in another tone, he spoke +confidently: "But--this isn't going to be a story of that kind. Van Horn +has a big place in the city and he's going to keep it. And I'm going to +spend the rest of this evening making a bit of a tool I've had in mind +for some time--that there's a remote chance I shall need in this case. +But if that remote chance should come--well, there's nothing like a +state of preparedness, as the military men say." + +"That's why you succeed, Red; you always are prepared." + +"Not always. And it's in the emergency you can't foresee that heaven +comes to the rescue. You can't expect it to come to the rescue when you +might have foreseen. 'Trust the Lord and keep your powder dry' is a +pretty good maxim for the surgical firing line, too--eh?" + +With his arm through his wife's he paced several times up and down the +flowery borders, then went away into the small laboratory and machine +shop where he was accustomed to do much of the work which showed only in +its final results. Through the rest of the hot August evening, his +attire stripped to the lowest terms compatible with possible unexpected +visitors, he laboured with all the enthusiasm characteristic of him at +tasks which to another mind would have been drudgery indeed. + +To him, at about ten o'clock, came his neighbour and friend, Arthur +Chester. Standing with arms on the sill outside of the lighted window, +clad in summer vestments of white and looking as cool and fresh as the +man inside looked hot and dirty, Chester attempted to lure the worker +forth. + +"Win's serving a lot of cold, wet stuff on our porch," he announced. +"Ellen's there, and the Macauleys, and Jord King has just driven up and +stopped for a minute. He's got Aleck with him and he's pleased as Punch +because he's rigged a contrivance so that Aleck can drive himself with +one hand. What do you think of that?" + +"Good work," replied Burns absently after a minute, during which he +tested a steel edge with an experimental finger and shook his head at +it. + +"Did you expect Jord to keep Aleck, when he's got to have another man +besides for the things Aleck can't do now?" + +Burns nodded. "Expect anything--of him." + +"Put down that murderous-looking thing and come along over. Ellen said +you were here, and Win sent word to you not to bother to change your +clothes." + +"Thanks--I won't." + +"Won't bother--or won't come?" + +"Both." + +Chester sighed. "Do you know what you remind me of when you get in this +hole of a workshop? A bull pup with his teeth in something, and only +growls issuing." + +"Better keep away then." + +"I suppose that's a hint--a bull-pup hint." + +Silence from inside, while the worker stirred something boiling over a +flame, poured a dark fluid from one retort into another, dropped in a +drop or two of something from a small vial inflammatorily labelled, and +started an electric motor in a corner. Chester could see the shine of +perspiration on the smooth brow below the coppery hair, and drops +standing like dew on the broad white chest from which the open shirt was +turned widely back. + +"It must be about a hundred and fifty Fahrenheit in there," he +commented. Burns grunted an assent. "It's only eighty-four on our porch, +and growing cooler every minute. The things we have to drink are just +above thirty-two, right off the ice." Chester's words were carefully +chosen. + +"Dangerous extremes. But I wouldn't mind having a pint or two of +something cold. Go, bring it to me." + +"Well, I like that." + +"So'll I, I hope." + +Chester laughed and strolled away. When he returned he carried a big +crystal pitcher filled with a pleasantly frothing home-made amber brew +in which ice tinkled. With him came Jordan King. Chester shoved aside +the screen and pushed the pitcher inside, accompanied by a glass which +Winifred had insisted on sending. + +Burns caught up the pitcher, drank thirstily, drew his arm across his +mouth and grinned through the window, meeting Jordan King's smiling gaze +in return. + +"Company manners don't go when your hands are black, eh?" remarked the +man inside. + +"Mechanics and surgeons seem a good deal alike at times," was the +laughing reply. + +"Can't tell 'em apart. Your lily-handed surgeon is an anomaly. I hear +Aleck came out under his own steam to-night. How does it go?" + +"First rate. It was great fun. He's like a boiling kettle full of steam, +with the lid off just in time." + +"Good. Be on your guard when he's driving, though, for a while. Don't +let him stay at the wheel down Devil's Hill just yet." + +"Why not? He has absolute control the way I've fixed it. You see the +spark and gas are right where--" + +"I don't want you to take one chance in a million on that back of yours +yet. See? Or do I have to drive that order in and spike it down?" + +"He seems to have a lot of conversation in him--for you," observed +Chester to King as the two outside laughed at this explosion from +within. + +"Such as it is," replied King with an audacious wink. "I thought I'd got +about through taking orders." + +"I'll give you both two minutes to clear out," came from inside the +window as Burns caught up a piece of steel and began narrowly to examine +it. Over it he looked at Jordan King, and the two exchanged a glance +which spoke of complete understanding. + +"Come again, boy," Burns said with a sudden flashing smile at his +friend. + +"I will--day after to-morrow in the afternoon," King returned, and his +eyes held Burns's. + +"What? Do you know?" + +King nodded, with a look of pride. "You bet I do." + +"Who told you?" + +"Himself." + +"Didn't know you knew him well enough for that." + +"Oh, yes, through mother; they're old friends. She sent me to see him +for her." + +"I see. Well, wish me luck!" + +"I wish you--your own skill at its highest power," said Jordan King +fervently. + +"Thanks, youngster," was Burns's answer, and this time there was no +smile on the face which he lifted again for an instant from above the +tiny piece of steel which held in it such potentialities--in his hands. + +"You seem to have got farther in under his skin than the rest of us," +observed Chester to King as they walked slowly away. There was a touch +of unconscious jealousy in his tone. He had known R.P. Burns a long +while before Jordan King had reached man's estate. "I never knew him to +say a word about a coming operation before." + +"He didn't say it now; I happened to know. Come out and see the rigging +we've put on the car so Aleck can work everything with one hand and two +feet." + +"And a few brains, I should say," Chester supplemented. + + * * * * * + +Though Burns had plenty of other work to keep him busy during the +interval before he should lay hands upon Doctor Van Horn, his mind was +seldom off his coming task. In spite of all that Ellen knew of the past +antagonism between the two men she was in possession of but +comparatively few of the facts. Except where his fiery temper had +entirely overcome him Burns had been silent concerning the many causes +he had had to dislike and distrust the older man. + +As what is called "a fashionable physician," having for his patients +few outside of the wealthy class, Dr. James Van Horn had occupied a +field of practice entirely different from that of R.P. Burns. Though +Burns numbered on his list many of the city's best known and most +prosperous citizens, he held them by virtue of a manner of address and a +system of treatment differing in no wise from that which he employed +upon the poorest and humblest who came to him. If people liked him it +was for no blandishments of his, only for his sturdy manliness, his +absolute honesty, and a certain not unattractive bluntness of speech +whose humour often atoned for its thrust. + +As for his skill, there was no question that it ranked higher than that +of his special rival. As for his success, it had steadily increased. +And, as all who knew him could testify, when it came to that "last +ditch" in which lay a human being fighting for his life, Burns's +reputation for standing by, sleeves rolled up and body stiff with +resistance of the threatening evil, was such that there was no man to +compete with him. + +It was inevitable that in a city of the moderate size of that in which +these two men practised there should arise situations which sometimes +brought about a clash between them. The patient of one, having arrived +at serious straits, often called for a consultation with the other. The +very professional bearing and methods of the two were so different, +strive though they might to adapt themselves to each other at least in +the presence of the patient, that trouble usually began at once, veiled +though it might be under the stringencies of professional etiquette. +Later, when it came to matters of life and death, these men were sure to +disagree radically. Van Horn, dignified of presence, polished of speech, +was apt to impress the patient's family with his wisdom, his restraint, +his modestly assured sense of the fitness of his own methods to the +needs of the case; while Burns, burning with indignation over some +breach of faith occasioned by his senior's orders in his absence, or +other indignity, flaming still more hotly over being forced into a +course which he believed to be against the patient's interest, was +likely to blurt out some rough speech at a moment when silence, as far +as his own interests were concerned, would have been more discreet--and +then would come rupture. + +Usually those most concerned never guessed at the hidden fires, because +even Burns, under bonds to his wife to restrain himself at moments of +danger, was nearly always able to get away from such scenes without open +outbreak. But more than once a situation had developed which could be +handled only by the withdrawal of one or the other physician from the +case--and then, whether he went or stayed, Burns could seldom win +through without showing what he felt. + +Now, however, he was feeling as he had never dreamed he could feel +toward James Van Horn. The way in which the man was facing the present +crisis in his life called for Burns's honest and ungrudging admiration. +With that same cool and unflurried bearing with which Van Horn was +accustomed to hold his own in a consultation was he now awaiting the +uncertain issue of his determination to end, in one way or the other, +the disability under which he was suffering. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE ONLY SAFE PLACE + + +When Red Pepper Burns visited James Van Horn, at the hospital, on the +evening before the operation, he found him lying quietly in bed, ready +for the night--and the morning. He looked up and smiled the same +slightly frosty smile Burns knew so well, but which he now interpreted +differently. As he sat down by the bedside the younger man's heart was +unbelievably warm. + +He looked straight, with his powerful hazel eyes slightly veiled by a +contraction of the eyelids, into the steady gray eyes of his +patient--his patient--he could not believe it yet. He laid exploring +fingers upon the pulse of the hand he had just grasped. + +"If they were all like you," he said gently, "we should have better +chances for doing our best. How do you manage it, Doctor?" + +"Temperament, I suppose," returned the other lightly. "Or"--and now he +spoke less lightly--"belief--or lack of it. If we get through--very +well; I shall go on with my work. If we don't get through--that ends +it. I have no belief in any hereafter, as you may know. A few years more +or less--what does it matter?" + +Burns studied the finely chiselled face in silence for a minute, then he +spoke slowly: "It matters this much--to me. If by a chance, a slip, a +lack of skill, I should put an end to a life which would never live +again, I could not bear it." + +Van Horn smiled--and somehow the smile was not frosty at all. "I am +trusting you. Your hand won't slip; there will be no lack of skill. If +you don't pull me through, it will be because destiny is too much for +us. To be honest, I don't care how it comes out. And yet, that's not +quite true either. I do care; only I want to be entirely well again. I +can't go on as I have gone." + +"You shall not. We're going to win; I'm confident of it. Only--Doctor, +if the unforeseen should happen I don't want you to go out of this life +believing there's no other. Listen." He pulled out a notebook and +searching, found a small newspaper clipping. "A big New York paper the +other day printed this headline: '_Fell Eight Stories to Death_.' A +smaller city paper copied it with this ironical comment: '_Headlines +cannot be too complete. But what a great story it would have been if he +had fallen eight stories to life!_' And then one of the biggest and +most influential and respected newspapers in the world copied both +headlines and comment and gave the whole thing a fresh title: '_Falls to +Life--Immortal_.' Doctor--you can't afford to lie to-night where you +do--and take chances on that last thing's not being true. The greatest +minds the world knows believe it is true." + +A silence fell. Then Van Horn spoke: "Burns, do you think it's wise to +turn a patient's thoughts into this channel on the eve of a crisis?" + +Burns regarded him closely. "Can you tell me, Doctor," he asked, "that +your thoughts weren't already in that channel?" + +"Suppose they were. And suppose I even admitted the possibility that you +were right--which, mind you, I don't--what use is it to argue the +question at this late hour?" + +"Because the hour is not too late. If you want to sleep quietly to-night +and wake fit for what's coming, put yourself in the hands of the Maker +of heaven and earth before you sleep. Then, whether there's a hereafter +or not won't matter for you; you'll leave that to Him. But you'll be in +His hands--and that's the only place it's safe to be." + +"Suppose I told you I didn't believe in any such Being." + +"I should tell you you knew better--and knew it with every fibre of +you." + +The two pairs of eyes steadily regarded each other. In Burns's flamed +sincerity and conviction. In Van Horn's grew a curious sort of +suffering. He moved restlessly on his pillow. + +"If I had known you were a fanatic as well as a fighter I might have +hesitated to call you, even though I believe in you as a surgeon," he +said somewhat huskily. + +"It's surgery you're getting from me to-night, but I cut to cure. A mind +at rest will help you through to-morrow." + +"Why should you think my mind isn't at rest? You commended me for my +quiet mind when you came in." + +"For your cool control. But your unhappy spirit looked out of your eyes +at me, and I've spoken to that. I couldn't keep silence. Forgive me, +Doctor; I'm a blunt fellow, as you have reason to know. I haven't liked +you, and you haven't liked me. We've fought each other all along the +line. But your calling me now has touched me very much, and I find +myself caring tremendously to give you the best I have. And not only the +best my hands have to give you, but the best of my brain and heart. And +that belief in the Almighty and His power to rule this world and other +worlds is the best I have. I'd like to give it to you." + +He rose, his big figure towering like a mountain of strength above the +slender form in the bed. + +Van Horn stretched up his hand to say good-night. "I know you thought it +right to say this to me, Burns," he said, "and I have reason to know +that when you think a thing is right you don't hesitate to do it. I like +your frankness--better than I seem to. I trust you none the less for +this talk; perhaps more. Do your best by me in the morning, and whatever +happens, your conscience will be free." + +Burns's two sinewy hands clasped the thin but still firm one of Van +Horn. "As I said just now, I've never wanted more to do my best than for +you," came very gently from his lips. "And I can tell you for your +comfort that the more anxious I am to do good work the surer I am to do +it. I don't know why it should be so; I've heard plenty of men say it +worked just the other way with them. Yes, I do know why. I think I'll +tell you the explanation. The more anxious I am the harder I pray to my +God to make me fit. And when I go from my knees to the operating-room I +feel armed to the teeth." + +He smiled, a brilliant, heart-warming smile, and suddenly he looked, to +the man on the bed who gazed at him, more like a conqueror than any one +he had ever seen. And all at once James Van Horn understood why, with +all his faults of temper and speech, his patients loved and clung to Red +Pepper Burns; and why he, Van Horn himself, had not been able to defeat +Burns as a rival. There was something about the man which spoke of +power, and at this moment it seemed clear, even to the skeptic, that it +was not wholly human power. + +Burns bent over the bed. "Good-night, Doctor," he said softly, almost as +he might have spoken to a child. Then, quite as he might have spoken to +a child, he added: "Say a bit of a prayer before you go to sleep. It +won't hurt you, and--who knows?--even unbelieving, you may get an +answer." + +Van Horn smiled up at him wanly. "Good-night, Doctor," he replied. +"Thank you for coming in--whether I sleep the better or the worse for +it." + + * * * * * + +If there were anything of the fanatic about Redfield Pepper Burns--and +the term was one which no human being but Van Horn had ever applied to +him--it was the fighting, not the fasting, side of his character which +showed uppermost at ten next morning. He came out of his hospital +dressing-room with that look of dogged determination written upon brow +and mouth which his associates knew well, and they had never seen it +written larger. From Doctor Buller, who usually gave the anesthetics in +Burns's cases, and from Miss Mathewson, who almost invariably worked +upon the opposite side of the operating table, to the newest nurse whose +only mission was to be at hand for observation, the staff more or less +acutely sensed the situation. Not one of those who had been for any +length of time in the service but understood that it was an unusual +situation. + +That James Van Horn and R.P. Burns had long been conscious or +unconscious rivals was known to everybody. Van Horn was not popular with +the hospital staff, while Burns might have ordered them all to almost +any deed of valour and have been loyally obeyed. But Van Horn's standing +in the city was well understood; he was admired and respected as the +most imposing and influential figure in the medical profession there +represented. He held many posts of distinction, not only in the city, +but in the state, and his name at the head of an article in any +professional magazine carried weight and authority. And that he should +have chosen Burns, rather than have sent abroad for any more famous +surgeon, was to be considered an extraordinary honour indicative of a +confidence not to have been expected. + +Altogether, there was more than ordinary tension observable in the +operating-room just before the appointed hour. A number of the city's +surgeons were present--Grayson, Fields, Lenhart, Stevenson--men +accustomed to see Burns at work and to recognize his ability as +uncommon. Not that they often admitted this to themselves or to one +another, but the fact remains that they understood precisely why Van +Horn, if he chose a local man at all--which of itself had surprised them +very much--had selected Burns. Not one of them, no matter how personally +he felt antagonistic to this most constantly employed member of the +profession, but would have felt safer in his hands in such a crisis than +in those of any of his associates. + +Burns held a brief conference with Miss Mathewson, who having been with +him in his office and his operative work for the entire twelve years of +his practice, was herself all but a surgeon and suited him better than +any man, with her deft fingers and sure response to his slightest +indication of intention. The others found themselves watching the two as +they came forward, cool, steady, ready for the perfect team work they +had so long played. If both hearts were beating a degree faster than +usual there was nothing to show it. Nobody knew what had passed between +the two. If they had known they might have understood why they worked so +perfectly together. + +"You're going to give me your best to-day, Amy, eh?" + +"You know that, Doctor Burns." + +"Of course I know it. But I want a little better than your best. This is +one of the cases where every second is going to count. We have to make +all the speed that's in us without a slip. I can trust you. I didn't +tell you before because I didn't want you thinking about it. But I tell +you now because I've got to have the speed. All right; that's all." + +He gave her one quick smile, then his face was set and stern again, as +always at this moment, for it was the moment when he caught sight of his +patient, quietly asleep, being brought to him. And it was the moment +when one swift echo of the prayer he had already made upon his knees +leaped through his mind--to be gone again as lightning flashes through a +midnight sky. After that there was to be no more prayer, only action. + + * * * * * + +The watching surgeons unconsciously held their breath as the operation +began. For the patient on the table was James Van Horn, and the man who +had taken Van Horn's life into his hands was not a great surgeon from +New York or Boston, as was to have been anticipated, but their everyday +colleague Burns. And at that moment not one of them envied him his +chance. + +Ellen had seldom waited more anxiously for the word her husband always +sent her at such times. He fully recognized that the silent partner in +crises like these suffered a very real and trying suspense, the greater +that there was nothing she could do for him except to send him to his +work heartened by the thought of her and of her belief in him. + +It was longer than usual, on this more than ordinarily fateful morning, +before Ellen received the first word from the hospital. When it came it +was from an attendant and it was not reassuring: + +"Doctor Burns wishes me to tell you that the patient has come through +the operation, but is in a critical condition. He will not leave him at +present." + +This meant more hours of waiting, during which Ellen could set her mind +and hand to nothing which was not purely mechanical. She was realizing +to the full that it was the unknown factor of which Burns had often +spoken, the unforeseen contingency, which might upset all the +calculations and efforts of science and skill. Well she knew that, +though her husband's reputation was an assured one, it might suffer +somewhat from the loss of this prominent case. Ellen felt certain that +this last consideration was one to weigh little with Burns himself +compared with his personal and bitter regret over an unsuccessful effort +to save a life. But it seemed to her that she cared from every point of +view, and to her the time of waiting was especially hard to bear. + +There was one relief in the situation--never had she had her vigils +shared as Jordan King was sharing this one. As the hours went by, both +by messages over the telephone and by more than one hurried drive out to +see Ellen in person, did he let her know that his concern for Burns's +victory was only second to her own. + +"He's got to save him!" was his declaration, standing in her doorway, +late in the evening, hat in hand, bright dark eyes on Ellen's. "And the +way he's sticking by, I'm confident he will. That bull-dog grip of his +we know so well would pull a ton of lead out of a quicksand. He won't +give up while there's a breath stirring, and even if it stops he'll +start it again--with his will!" + +"You are a loyal friend." Ellen's smile rewarded him for this blindly +assured speech, well as she knew how shaky was the foundation on which +he might be standing. "But the last message he sent was only that no +ground had been lost." + +"Well, that's a good deal after ten hours." He looked at his watch. +"Keep a brave heart, Mrs. Burns. I'm going to the hospital now to see if +I can get just a glimpse of our man before we settle down for the night. +And I want to arrange with Miss Dwight--she was my nurse--to let me know +any news at any hour in the night." + +It was at three in the morning that King called her to say with a ring +of joy in his voice: "There's a bit of a gain, Mrs. Burns. It looks +brighter." + +It was at eight, five hours later, that Burns himself spoke to her. His +voice betrayed tension in spite of its steadiness. "We're holding hard, +Len; that's about all I can say." + +"Dear--are you getting any rest?" + +"Don't want any; I'm all right. I'll not be home till we're out of this, +you know. Good-bye, my girl." And he was gone, back to the bedside. She +knew, without being told, that he had hardly left it. + +Thirty-six hours had gone by, and Ellen and Jordan King had had many +messages from the hospital before the one came which eased their anxious +minds: "Out of immediate danger." It was almost another thirty-six +before Burns came home. + +She had never seen him look more radiantly happy, though the shadows +under his eyes were heavy, and there were lines of fatigue about his +mouth. Although she had been watching for him he took her by surprise +at last, coming upon her in the early morning just as she was descending +the stairs. With both arms around her, as she stood on the bottom stair, +he looked into her eyes. + +"The game's worth the candle, Len," he said. + +"Even though you've been burning the candle at both ends, dear? Yes, I +know it is. I'm so glad--so glad!" + +"We're sworn friends, Van and I. Can you believe it? Len, he's simply +the finest ever." + +She smiled at him. "I'm sure you think so; it's just what you would +think, my generous boy." + +"I'll prove it to you by and by, when I've had a wink of sleep. A bath, +breakfast, and two hours of rest--then I'll be in service again. Van's +resting comfortably, practically out of danger, and--Len, his eyes +remind me of a sick child's who has waked out of a delirium to find his +mother by his side." + +"Is that the way his eyes look when they meet yours?" + +He nodded. "Of course. That's how I know." + +"O Red," she said softly--"to think of the eyes that look at you like +that!" + +"They don't all," he answered as the two went up the stairs side by +side. "But Van--well, he's been through the deep waters, and he's +found--a footing on rock where he expected shifting sands. Ah, there's +my boy! Give him to me quick!" + +The Little-Un, surging plumply out of the nursery, tumbled into his +father's arms, and submitted, shouting with glee, to the sort of +huggings, kissings, and general inspection to which he was happily +accustomed when Burns came home after a longer absence than usual. + +Just before he went back to the hospital, refreshed by an hour's longer +sleep than he had meant to take, because Ellen would not wake him +sooner, Burns opened the pile of mail which had accumulated during his +absence. He sat on the arm of the blue couch, tossing the letters one by +one upon the table behind it, in two piles, one for his personal +consideration, the other for Miss Mathewson's answering. Ellen, happily +relaxing in a corner of the couch, her eyes watching the letter opening, +saw her husband's eyes widen as he stooped to pick up a small blue paper +which had fallen from the missive he had just slitted. As he unfolded +the blue slip and glanced at it, an astonished whistle leaped to his +lips. + +"Well, by the powers--what's this?" he murmured. "A New York draft for a +thousand dollars, inclosed in a letter which says nothing except a +typewritten '_From One of the most grateful of all grateful patients_.' +Len, what do you think of that? Who on earth sent it? I haven't had a +rich patient who hasn't paid his bill, or who won't pay it in due form +when he gets around to it. And the poor ones don't send checks of this +size." + +"I can't imagine," she said, studying the few words on the otherwise +blank sheet, and the postmark on the typewritten envelope, which showed +the letter also to have come from New York. "You haven't had a patient +lately who was travelling--a hotel case, or anything of that sort?" + +He shook his head. "None that didn't pay before he left--and none that +seemed particularly grateful anyhow. Well, I must be off. The thousand's +all right, wherever it came from, eh? And I want to get back to Van. I'd +put that draft in the fire rather than go back to find the slightest +slip in his case. I think, if I should, I'd lose my nerve at last." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE TRUTH ABOUT SUSQUEHANNA + + +Jordan King, directing his car with necessary caution through the +traffic of a small but crowded city, two hundred miles from home, +suddenly threw out his clutch and jammed his brakes into urgent use. +Beside him Aleck, flinging out a hasty arm to warn drivers pressing +closely behind, gazed at his employer in wonder. There was absolutely +nothing to stop them, and an autocratic crossing policeman just ahead +was impatiently waving them forward. + +But King, his eyes apparently following something or some one in the +throng, which had just negotiated the crossing of the street at right +angles to his own direction, spoke hurriedly: "Turn to the right here, +Aleck, and wait for me at the first spot down that street where they'll +let you stop." + +He was out of the car and off at a dangerous slant through the +procession of moving vehicles, dodging past great trucks and slipping by +the noses of touring cars and coupés with apparent recklessness of +consequences. + +Aleck, sliding into the driver's seat and forced to lose sight of +King's tall figure because of the urgency of the crowding mass behind, +was moved to curious speculation. As he turned the designated corner, he +was saying to himself with a chuckle: "He always was quick on the +trigger, but I'll be darned if that wasn't about the hastiest move I +ever saw him make. What's he after, anyhow, in this town where he just +told me he didn't know a soul? Well, it's some wait for me, I'll bet." + +If he could have seen his master as that young man plunged along through +the crowd Aleck would have found plenty to interest him. King was doing +his best to pursue and catch up with a figure which he now and again +lost sight of in the throng, so that he slowed his pace lest he go by it +unawares. The fear that he might thus miss and lose it sharpened his +gaze and gave to his face an intent look, so that many people stared at +him as he passed them, wondering what the comely, dark-eyed young man +was after that he was rushing at such a pace. + +There came a moment when King paused, uncertain, his heart standing +still with the certainty that he was off the track and that his quarry +had unconsciously doubled and eluded him. An instant later he drew a +quick breath of relief, his gaze following a slender black figure as it +mounted the steps of an old church which stood, dingy but still +dignified, close by the highway, its open doors indicating that it had +remained in this downtown district for a purpose. King sprang up the +steps, then paused in the great doorway, beyond which the darkness and +quiet of an empty interior silently invited passers-by to rest and +reflect. At that moment a deep organ note sounded far away upon the +stillness, and King took a step inside, looking cautiously about him. +The figure he pursued had vanished, and after a moment more he crossed +the vestibule and stood, hat in hand, gazing into the dim depths beyond. + +For a little, coming as he had from the strong light of the September +afternoon, he could see absolutely nothing; but as his vision cleared he +was able to make out a small group of people far toward the front of the +spacious interior, and the form of the organist himself before his +manuals low at the right of the choir. But he had to look for some time +before he could descry at the farthermost side of the church a solitary +head bent upon the rail before it. Toward this point the young man +slowly made his way, his heart hammering a most unwonted tattoo within +his broad breast. + +Several pews behind and to one side of the kneeling figure he took his +place, his gaze fastened upon it. He looked his fill, secure in his own +position, which was in the shadow of a great stone pillar, where the +dim light from the sombre-toned windows did not touch him. And, as he +looked, the conviction he had had since his first meeting with this girl +deepened and strengthened into resolution. He would not lose her again, +no matter what it might cost to hold her. He would not believe a man +could be mistaken in that face, in that exquisite and arresting +personality. There was not such another in the whole wide world. + +Suddenly she turned, and evidently she saw that some one was near her, +though he knew it was not possible that she had recognized him. She sat +quite still for another five minutes, then rose very quietly, gathering +up the remembered black handbag, and moved like a young nun into the +aisle, head downbent. King slipped out of his pew, made a quick circuit +around the pillar, and met her squarely as she came toward him. + +He stood still in her path, and she, looking partially up to pass him +with that complete ignoring of his presence which young women of +breeding employ when strangers threaten to take notice, heard his low +voice: "Please don't run away--from your friend!" + +"Oh--Mr. King!" Her eyes, startled, met his indeed, and into her face, +as she spoke his name, poured a flood of beautiful colour, at sight of +which King all but lost his head. + +He managed, however, to retain sufficient sanity to grasp her hand after +the fashion approved as the proper sign of cordiality in meeting a +valued acquaintance, and to say, in an outwardly restrained manner: +"Won't you sit down again here? We can talk so much better than +outside--and I must talk with you. You have no idea how hard I have +tried to find you." + +She seemed to hesitate for an instant, but ended by slipping into the +pew by the pillar where King had been sitting, and to which he pointed +her, as the most sheltered spot at hand, where the group of people at +the front of the church were hidden from view, and only the now low and +throbbing notes of the organ could remind the pair that they were not +absolutely alone. + +"This is wonderful--for me," King began, in the hushed tone befitting +such a place--and the tone which suited his feelings as well. "I have +thought of you a million times in these months and longed to know just +how you were looking. Now that I see for myself my mind is a bit +easier--and yet--I'm somehow more anxious about you than ever." + +"There's no reason why you should be anxious about me, Mr. King," she +answered, her eyes releasing themselves from his in spite of his effort +to hold them. "I'm doing very well, and--quite enjoying my work. How +about yourself? I hardly need to ask." + +"Oh, I'm coming on finely, thank you. I've plunged into my work with all +the zest I ever had. Only one thing has bothered me: I seemed unable to +get out of the habit of watching the mails. And they have been mighty +disappointing." + +"You surely couldn't expect," she said, smiling a little, "that once you +were well again you should be pampered with frequent letters." + +"I certainly haven't been pampered. One letter in all this time--" + +"Book agents haven't much time for writing letters. And surely engineers +must be busy people." + +He was silent for a minute, studying her. She seemed, in spite of her +youth and beauty, wonderfully self-reliant. Again, as in the room at the +hospital, her quiet poise of manner struck him. And though she was once +more dressed in the plainest and least costly of attire--as well as he +could judge--he knew that he should be entirely willing to take her +anywhere where he was known, with no mental apologies for her +appearance. This thought immediately put another into his mind, on which +he lost no time in acting. + +"This is a great piece of luck," said he, and went on hurriedly, trying +to use diplomacy, which always came hard with him: "I don't want it to +slip away too soon. Why couldn't we spend the rest of the day together? +I'm just on my way back home from a piece of work I've been +superintending outside this city. I've plenty of time ahead of me, and +I'm sure the book business can't be so pressing that you couldn't take a +few hours off. If you'll venture to trust yourself to me we'll go off +into the country somewhere, and have dinner at some pleasant place. Then +we can talk things over--all sorts of things," he added quickly, lest +this seem too pointed. "Won't you--please?" + +She considered an instant, then said frankly: "Of course that would be +delightful, and I can't think of a real reason why I shouldn't do it. +What time is it, please?" + +"Only three o'clock. We'll have time for a splendid drive and I'll +promise to get you back at any hour you say--after dinner." + +"It must be early." + +"It shall be. Well, then--will you wait in the vestibule out here two +minutes, please? I'll have the car at the door." + +Thus it happened that Aleck, four blocks away, having just comfortably +settled to the reading of a popular magazine on mechanics, found himself +summarily ejected from his seat, and sent off upon his own resources +for a number of hours. + +"Take care of yourself, Al, and have a good time out of it if you can," +urged his master, and Aleck observed that King's eyes were very bright +and his manner indicative of some fresh mental stimulus received during +the brief time of his absence. "Have the best sort of a dinner wherever +you like." + +"All right, Mr. King," Aleck responded. "I hope you're going to have a +good time yourself," he added, "after all the work you've done to-day. I +was some anxious for fear you'd do too much." + +"No chance, Aleck, with Doctor Burns's orders what they are. And I +didn't do a thing but stand around and talk with the men. I'm feeling +fit as a fiddle now." And King drove off in haste. + +Back at the church he watched with intense satisfaction Miss Anne +Linton's descent of the dusty steps. The September sunshine was +hazily bright, the air was warmly caressing, and there were several +hours ahead containing such an opportunity as he had not yet had to +try at finding out the things he had wanted to know. Not this girl's +circumstances--though he should be interested in that topic--not any +affairs of hers which she should not choose to tell him; but the future +relationship between herself and him--this was what he must establish +upon some sort of a definite basis, if it were possible. + +Out through the crowded streets into the suburbs, on beyond these to the +open country, the car took its way with as much haste as was compatible +with necessary caution. Once on the open road, however, and well away, +King paid small attention to covering distance. Indeed, when they had +reached a certain wooded district, picturesque after the fashion of the +semi-mountainous country of that part of the state, he let his car idle +after a fashion most unaccustomed with him, who was usually principally +concerned with getting from one place to another with the least possible +waste of time. + +And now he and Anne Linton were talking as they never had had the chance +to talk before, and they were exploring each other's minds with the zest +of those who have many tastes in common. King was confirming that of +which he had been convinced by her letters, that she was thoroughly +educated, and that she had read and thought along lines which had +intensely interested him ever since he had reached the thinking age. To +his delight he found that she could hold her own in an argument with as +close reasoning, as logical deduction, as keen interpretation, as any +young man he knew. And with it all she showed a certain quality of +appreciation of his own side of the question which especially pleased +him, because it proved that she possessed that most desirable power, +rare among those of her sex as he knew them--the ability to hold herself +free from undue bias. + +Yet she proved herself a very girl none the less by suddenly crying out +at sight of certain tall masses of shell-pink flowers growing by the +roadside in a shady nook, and by insisting on getting out to pick them +for herself. + +"It's so much more fun," she asserted, "to choose one's own than to +watch a man picking all the poorest blossoms and leaving the very best." + +"Is that what we do?" King asked, his eyes feasting upon the sight of +her as she filled her arms with the gay masses, her face eager with her +pleasure in them. + +"Yes, indeed. Or else you get out a jackknife and hack off great +handfuls of them at once, and bring them back all bleeding from your +ruthless attack." + +"I see. And you gather them delicately, so they don't mind, I suppose. +Yet--I was given to understand that 'Susquehanna' died first. I've +always wondered what you did to her. I'd banked on her as the huskiest +of the lot." + +She flashed a quick look at him, compounded of surprise, mirth, and +something else whose nature he could not guess. "'Susquehanna' was +certainly a wonderful rose," she admitted. + +"Yet only next morning she was sadly drooping. I know, because I +received a report of her. And I lost my wager." + +"You should have known better," she said demurely, her head bent over +her armful of flowers, "than to make a wager on the life of a rose sent +to a girl who was just coming back to life herself." + +"You weren't so gentle with 'Susquehanna,' then, I take it, as you are +with those wild things you have there." + +"I was not gentle with her at all." Anne lifted her head with a +mischievously merry look. "If you must know--I kissed her--hard!" + +"Ah!" Jordan King sat back, laughing, with suddenly rising colour. "I +thought as much. But I suppose I'm to take it that you did it solely +because she was 'Susquehanna'--not because--" + +"Certainly because she was her lovely self, cool and sweet and a +glorious colour, and she reminded me--of other roses I had known. +Flowers to a convalescent are only just a little less reviving than +food. 'Susquehanna' cheered me on toward victory." + +"Then she died happy, I'm sure." + +He would have enjoyed keeping it up with nonsense of this pleasurable +sort, but as soon as Anne was back in the car she somehow turned him +aside upon quite different ground, just how he could not tell. He found +himself led on to talk about his work, and he could not discover in her +questioning a trace of anything but genuine interest. No man, however +modest about himself, finds it altogether distressing to have to tell a +charming girl some of his more exciting experiences. In the days of his +early apprenticeship King had spent many months with a contracting +engineer of reputation, who was executing a notable piece of work in a +wild and even dangerous country, and the young man's memory was full of +adventures connected with that period. In contrast with his present +work, which was of a much more prosaic sort, it formed a chapter in his +history to which it stirred him even yet to turn back, and at Anne's +request he was soon launched upon it. + +So the afternoon passed amidst the sights and sounds of the September +country. And now and again they stopped to look at some fine view from a +commanding height, or flew gayly down some inviting stretch of smooth +road. By and by they were at an old inn, well up on the top of the +world, which King had had in mind from the start, and to which he had +taken time, an hour before, to telephone and order things he had hoped +she would like. When the two sat down at a table in a quiet corner +there were flowers and shining silver upon a snowy cloth, and the food +which soon arrived was deliciously cooked, sustaining the reputation the +place had among motorists. And in the very way in which Anne Linton +filled her position opposite Jordan King was further proof that, in +spite of all evidence to the contrary, she belonged to his class. + +Their table was lighted with shaded candles, and in the soft glow Anne's +face had become startlingly lovely. She had tucked a handful of the +shell-pink wild flowers into the girdle of her black dress, and their +hue was reflected in her cheeks, glowing from the afternoon's drive in +the sun. As King talked and laughed, his eyes seldom off her face, he +felt the enchantment of her presence grow upon him with every minute +that went by. + +Suddenly he blurted out a question which had been in his mind all day. +"I had a curious experience a while back," he said, "when I first got +out into the world. I was in Doctor Burns's car, and we met some people +in a limousine, touring. They stopped to ask about the road, and there +was a girl in the car who looked like you. But--she didn't recognize me +by the slightest sign, so I knew of course it couldn't be you." + +He looked straight at Anne as he spoke, and saw her lower her eyes for a +moment with an odd little smile on her lips. She did not long evade his +gaze, however, but gave him back his look unflinchingly. + +"It was I," she said. "But I'm not going to tell you how I came to be +there, nor why I didn't bow to you. All I want to say is that there was +a reason for it all, and if I could tell you, you would understand." + +Well, he could not look into her face and not trust her in whatever she +might elect to do, and he said something to that effect. Whereupon she +smiled and thanked him, and said she was sorry to be so mysterious. He +recalled with a fresh thrill how she had looked at him at that strange +meeting, for now that he knew that it was surely she, the great fact +which stayed by him was that she had given him that look to remember, +given it to him with intent, beyond a doubt. + +They came out presently upon a long porch overhanging the shore of a +small lake. The September sun was already low, and the light upon the +blue hills in the distance was turning slowly to a dusky purple. The +place was very quiet, for it was growing late in the tourist season, and +the inn was remote from main highways of travel. + +"Can't we stay here just a bit?" King asked pleadingly. "It won't take +us more than an hour to get back if we go along at a fair pace. We came +by a roundabout way." + +With each hour that passed he was realizing more fully how he dreaded +the end of this unexpected and absorbing adventure. So far none of his +attempts to pave the way for other meetings, in other towns to which she +might be going in the course of her book selling, had resulted in +anything satisfactory. And even now Anne Linton was shaking her head. + +"I think I must ask you to take me back now," she said. "I want to come +into the house where I am staying not later than I usually do." + +So he had to leave the pleasant, vine-clad porch and take his place +beside her in the car again. It did not seem to him that he was having a +fair chance. But he thought of a plan and proceeded to put it into +execution. He drove steadily and in silence until the lights of the +nearing city were beginning to show faintly in the twilight, with the +sky still rich with colour in the west. Then, at a certain curve in the +road far above the rest of the countryside, he brought the car to a +standstill. + +"I can't bear to go on and end this day," he said in a low voice of +regret. "How can I tell when I shall see you again? Do you realize that +every time I have said a word about our meeting in the future you've +somehow turned me aside? Do you want me to understand that you would +rather never see me again?" + +Her face was toward the distant lights, and she did not answer for a +minute. Then she said slowly: "I should like very much to see you again, +Mr. King. But you surely understand that I couldn't make appointments +with you to meet me in other towns. This has happened and it has been +very pleasant, but it wouldn't do to make it keep happening. Even though +I travel about with a book to sell, I--shall never lose the sense +of--being under the protection of a home such as other girls have." + +"I wouldn't have you lose it--good heavens, no! I only--well--" And now +he stopped, set his teeth for an instant, and then plunged ahead. "But +there's something I can't lose either, and it's--you!" + +She looked at him then, evidently startled. "Mr. King, will you drive +on, please?" she said very quietly, but he felt something in her tone +which for an instant he did not understand. In the next instant he +thought he did understand it. + +He spoke hurriedly: "You don't know me very well yet, do you? But I +thought you knew me well enough to know that I wouldn't say a thing like +that unless I meant all that goes with it--and follows it. You see--I +love you. If--if you are not afraid of a man in a plaster jacket--it'll +come off some day, you know--I ask you to marry me." + +There was a long silence then, in which King felt his heart pumping +away for dear life. He had taken the bit between his teeth now, +certainly, and offered this girl, of whom he knew less than of any human +being in whom he had the slightest interest, all that he had to give. +Yet--he was so sure he knew her that, the words once out, he realized +that he was glad he had spoken them. + +At last she turned toward him. "You are a very brave man," she said, +"and a very chivalrous man." + +He laughed rather huskily. "It doesn't take much of either bravery or +chivalry for a man to offer himself to you." + +"It must take plenty of both. You are--what you are, in the big world +you live in. And you dare to trust an absolute stranger, whom you have +no means of knowing better, with that name of yours. Think, Mr. Jordan +King, what that name means to you--and to your mother." + +"I have thought. And I offer it to you. And I do know what you are. You +can't disguise yourself--any more than the Princess in the fairy tale. +Do you think all those notes I had from you at the hospital didn't tell +the story? I don't know why you are selling books from door to door--and +I don't want to know. What I do understand is--that you are the first of +your family to do it!" + +"Mr. King," she said gravely, "women are very clever at one +thing--cleverer than men. With a little study, a little training, a +little education, they can make a brave showing. I have known a shopgirl +who, after six months of living with a very charming society woman, +could play that woman's part without mistake. And when it came to +talking with men of brains, she could even use a few clever phrases and +leave the rest of the conversation to them, and they were convinced of +her brilliant mind." + +"You have not been a shopgirl," he said steadily. "You belong in a home +like mine. If you have lost it by some accident, that is only the +fortune of life. But you can't disguise yourself as a commonplace +person, for you're not. And--I can't let you go out of my life--I +can't." + +Again silence, while the sunset skies slowly faded into the dusky blue +of night, and the lights over the distant city grew brighter and +brighter. A light wind, warmly smoky with the pleasant fragrance of +burning bonfires, touched the faces of the two in the car and blew small +curly strands of hair about Anne Linton's ears. + +Presently she spoke. "I am going to promise to write to you now and +then," she said, "and give you each time an address where you may +answer, if you will promise not to come to me. I am going to tell you +frankly that I want your letters." + +"You want my letters--but not me?" + +"You put more of yourself into your letters than any one else I know. So +in admitting that I want your letters I admit that I want yourself--as a +good friend." + +"No more than that?" + +"That's quite enough, isn't it, for people who know each other only as +we do?" + +"It's not enough for me. If it's enough for you, then--well, it's as I +thought." + +"What did you think?" + +He hesitated, then spoke boldly: "No woman really wants--a mangled human +being for her own." + +Impulsively she laid her hand on his. Instantly he grasped it. "Please," +she said, "will you never say--or think--that, again?" + +He gazed eagerly into her face, still duskily visible to his scrutiny. +"I won't," he answered, "if you'll tell me you care for me. Oh, don't +you?--don't you?--not one bit? Just give me a show of a chance and I'll +make you care. I've _got_ to make you care. Why, I've thought of nothing +but you for months--dreamed of you, sleeping and waking. I can't stop; +it's too late. Don't ask me to stop--Anne--dear!" + +No woman in her senses could have doubted the sincerity of this young +man. That he was no adept at love making was apparent in the way he +stumbled over his phrases; in the way his voice caught in his throat; +in the way it grew husky toward the last of this impassioned pleading of +his. + +He still held her hand close. "Tell me you care--a little," he begged of +her silence. + +"No girl can be alone as I am now and not be touched by such words," she +said very gently after a moment's hesitation. "But--promising to marry +you is a different matter. I can't let you rashly offer me so much when +I know what it would mean to you to bring home a--book agent to your +mother!" + +He uttered a low exclamation. "My life is my own, to do with as I +please. If I'm satisfied, that's enough. You are what I want--all I +want. As for my mother--when she knows you--But we'll not talk of that +just yet. What I must know is--do you--can you--care for me--enough to +marry me?" His hand tightened on hers, his voice whispered in her ear: +"Anne, darling--can't you love me? I want you so--oh--I want you so! Let +me kiss you--just once, dear. That will tell you--" + +But she drew her hand gently but efficiently away; she spoke firmly, +though very low: "No--no! Listen--Jordan King. Sometime--by next spring +perhaps, I shall be in the place I call home. When that time comes I +will let you know. If you still care to, you may come and see me there. +Now--won't you drive on, please?" + +"Yes, if you'll let me--just once--_once_ to live on all those months! +Anne--" + +But, when he would have made action and follow close upon the heels of +pleading he found himself gently but firmly prevented by an uplifted +small hand which did not quite touch his nearing face. "Ah, don't spoil +that chivalry of yours," said her mellow, low voice. "Let me go on +thinking you are what I have believed you are all along. Be patient, and +prove whether this is real, instead of snatching at what might dull your +judgment!" + +"It wouldn't dull it--only confirm it. And--I want to make you remember +me." + +"You have provided that already," she admitted, at which he gave an +ejaculation as of relief--and of longing--and possibly of recognition of +her handling of the whole--from her point of view--rather difficult +situation. At the back of his mind, in spite of his disappointment at +being kept at arm's length when he wanted something much more definite, +was the recognition that here was precisely the show of spirit and +dignity which his judgment approved and admired. + +"I'll let you go, if I must; but I'll come to you--if you live in a +hovel--if you live in a cave--if you live--Oh, I know how you live!" + +"How do I live?" she asked, laughing a little unsteadily, and as if +there were tears in her eyes, though of this he could not be sure. + +"You live in a plain little house, with just a few of the things you +used to have about you; rows of books, a picture or two, and some old +china. Things may be a bit shabby, but everything is beautifully neat, +and there are garden flowers on the table, perhaps white lilacs!" + +"Oh, what a romanticist!" she said, through her soft laughter. "One +would think you wrote novels instead of specifications for concrete +walls. What if you come and find me living with my older sister, who +sews for a living, plain sewing, at a dollar a day? And we have a long +credit account at the grocery, which we can't pay? And at night our +little upstairs room is full of neighbours, untidy, loud-talking, +commonplace women? And the lamp smokes--" + +"It wouldn't smoke; you would have trimmed it," he answered, quickly and +with conviction. "But, even if it were all like that, you would still be +the perfect thing you are. And I would take you away--" + +"If you don't drive on, Mr. King," she interposed gently, "you will soon +be mentally unfit to drive at all. And I must be back before the +darkness has quite fallen. And--don't you think we have talked enough +about ourselves?" + +"I like that word," he declared as he obediently set the car in motion. +"Ourselves--that sounds good to me. As long as you keep me with you that +way I'll try to be satisfied. One thing I'm sure of: I've something to +work for now that I didn't have this morning. Oh, I know; you haven't +given me a thing. But you're going to let me come to see you next +spring, and that's worth everything to me. Meanwhile, I'll do my level +best--for you." + + * * * * * + +When he drew up before the door of the church, where, in spite of his +entreaties that he be allowed to take her to her lodging place, Anne +insisted on being left, he felt, in spite of all he had gained that day, +a sinking of the heart. Though the hour was early and the neighbourhood +at this time of day a quiet one, and though she assured him that she had +not far to go, he was unhappy to leave her thus unaccompanied. + +"I wish I could possibly imagine why it must be this way," he said to +himself as he stood hat in hand beside his car, watching Anne Linton's +quickly departing figure grow more and more shadowy as the twilight +enveloped it. "Well, one thing is certain: whatever she does there's a +good and sufficient reason; and I trust her." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +RED HEADED AGAIN + + +Crowding his hat upon his head with a vigorous jerk after his reluctant +parting with Anne Linton at the church door, Jordan King jumped into his +car and made his way slowly through the streets to the hotel where Aleck +awaited him. For the first few miles out of the city he continued to +drive at a pace so moderate that Aleck more than once glanced +surreptitiously at him, wondering if he were actually going to sleep at +the wheel. It was not until they were beyond the last environs and far +out in the open country that, quite suddenly, the car was released from +its unusual restraint and began to fly down the road toward home at the +old wild speed. + +Somehow or other, after this encounter, King could not settle down to +his work till he had seen Red Pepper Burns. He could not have explained +why this should be so, for he certainly did not intend to tell his +friend of the meeting with Anne Linton, or of the basis upon which his +affairs now stood. But he wanted to see Burns with a sort of hunger +which would not be satisfied, and he went to look him up one evening +when he himself had returned early from his latest trip to the concrete +dam. + +He found Burns just setting forth on a drive to see a patient in the +country, and King invited himself to go with him, running his own car +off at one side of the driveway and leaping into Burns's machine with +only a gay by-your-leave apology. But he had not more than slid into his +seat before he found that he was beside a man whom he did not know. + +King had long understood that Red Pepper's significant cognomen stood +for the hasty temper which accompanied the coppery hair and hazel eyes +of the man with the big heart. But such exhibitions of that temper as +King had witnessed had been limited to quick explosions from which the +smoke had cleared away almost as soon as the sound of warfare had died +upon the air. He was in no way prepared, therefore, to find himself in +the company of a man who was so angry that he could not--or would +not--speak to one of his best friends. + +"Fine night," began the young man lightly, trying again, after two +silent miles, to make way against the frost in the air. "I don't know +when we've had such magnificent September weather." + +No answer. + +"I hope you don't mind my going along. You needn't talk at all, you +know--and I'll be quiet, too, if you prefer." + +No answer. King was not at all sure that Burns heard him. The car was +running at a terrific pace, and the profile of the man at the wheel +against the dusky landscape looked as if it were carved out of stone. +The young man fell silent, wondering. Almost, he wished he had not been +so sure of his welcome, but there was no retreating now. + +Five miles into the country they ran, and King soon guessed that their +destination might be Sunny Farm, a home for crippled children which was +Ellen Burns's special charity, established by herself on a small scale a +few years before and greatly grown since in its size and usefulness. +Burns was its head surgeon and its devoted patron, and he was accustomed +to do much operative work in its well-equipped surgery, bringing out +cases which he found in the city slums or among the country poor, with +total disregard for any considerations except those of need and +suffering. King knew that the place and the work were dearer to the +hearts of both Doctor and Mrs. Burns than all else outside their own +home, and he began to understand that if anything had gone wrong with +affairs there Red Pepper would be sure to take it seriously. + +Quite as he had foreseen--since there were few homes on this road, +which ran mostly through thickly wooded country--the car rushed on to +the big farmhouse, lying low and long in the night, with pleasant lights +twinkling from end to end. Burns brought up with a jerk beside the +central porch, leaped out, and disappeared inside without a word of +explanation to his companion, who sat wondering and looking in through +the open door to the wide hall which ran straight through the house to +more big porches on the farther side. + +Everything was very quiet at this hour, according to the rules of the +place, all but the oldest patients being in bed and asleep by eight +o'clock. Therefore when, after an interval, voices became faintly +audible, there was nothing to prevent their reaching the occupant of the +car. + +In a front room upstairs at one side of the hall two people were +speaking, and presently through the open window Burns was heard to say +with incisive sternness: "I'll give you exactly ten minutes to pack your +bag and go--and I'll take you--to make sure you do go." + +A woman's voice, in a sort of deep-toned wail, answered: "You aren't +fair to me, Doctor Burns; you aren't fair! You--" + +"Fair!" The word was a growl of suppressed thunder. "Don't talk of +fairness--you! You don't know the meaning of the word. You haven't been +fair to a single kid under this roof, or to a nurse--or to any one of +us--you with your smiles--and your hypocrisy--you who can't be trusted. +That's the name for you--She-Who-Can't-Be-Trusted. Go pack that bag, +Mrs. Soule; I won't hear another word!" + +"Oh, Doctor--" + +"Go, I said!" + +Outside, in the car, Jordan King understood that if the person to whom +Burns was speaking had not been a woman that command of his might have +been accompanied by physical violence, and the offending one more than +likely have been ejected from the door by the thrust of two vigorous +hands on his shoulders. There was that in Burns's tone--all that and +more. His wrath was quite evidently no explosion of the moment, but the +culmination of long irritation and distrust, brought to a head by some +overt act which had settled the offender's case in the twinkling of an +eye. + +Burns came out soon after, followed by a woman well shrouded in a heavy +veil. + +King jumped out of the car. "I'm awfully sorry," he tried to say in +Burns's ear. "Just leave me and I'll walk back." + +"Ride on the running board," was the answer, in a tone which King knew +meant that he was requested not to argue about it. + +Therefore when the woman--to whom he was not introduced--was seated, he +took his place at her feet. To his surprise they did not move off in the +direction from which they had come, but went on over the hills for five +miles farther, driving in absolute silence, at high speed, and arriving +at a small station as a train was heard to whistle far off somewhere in +the darkness. + +Burns dashed into the station, bought a ticket, and had his passenger +aboard the train before it had fairly come to a standstill at the +platform. King heard him say no word of farewell beyond the statement +that a trunk would be forwarded in the morning. Then the whole strange +event was over; the train was only a rumble in the distance, and King +was in his place again beside the man he did not know. + + * * * * * + +Silence again, and darkness, with only the stars for light, and the +roadside rushing past as the car flew. Then suddenly, beside the deep +woods, a stop, and Burns getting out of the car, with the first +voluntary words he had spoken to King that night. + +"Sit here, will you? I'll be back--sometime." + +"Of course. Don't hurry." + +It was an hour that King sat alone, wondering. Where Burns had gone, he +had no notion, and no sound came back to give him hint. As far as King +knew there was no habitation back there in the depths into which his +companion had plunged; he could not guess what errand took him there. + +At last came a distant crashing as of one making his way through heavy +undergrowth, and the noise drew nearer until at length Burns burst +through into the road, wide of the place where he had gone in. Then he +was at the car and speaking to King, and his voice was very nearly his +own again. + +"Missed my trail coming back," he said. "I've kept you a blamed long +time, haven't I?" + +"Not a bit. Glad to wait." + +"Of course that's a nice, kind lie at this time of night, and when +you've no idea what you've been waiting for. Well, I'll tell you, and +then maybe you'll be glad you assisted at the job." + +He got in and drove off, not now at a furious pace, but at an ordinary +rate of speed which made speech possible. And after a little he spoke +again. "Jord," he said, "you don't know it, but I can be a fiend +incarnate." + +"I don't believe it," refused King stoutly. + +"It's absolutely true. When I get into a red rage I could twist a neck +more easily than I can get a grip on myself. Sometimes I'm afraid I'll +do it. Years back when I had a rush of blood to the head of that sort I +used to take it out in swearing till the atmosphere was blue; but I +can't do that any more." + +"Why not?" King asked, with a good deal of curiosity. + +"I did it once too often--and the last time I sent a dying soul to the +other world with my curses in its ears--the soul of a child, Jord. I +lost my head because his mother had disobeyed my orders, and the little +life was going out when it might have stayed. When I came to myself I +realized what I'd done--and I made my vow. Never again, no matter what +happened! And I've kept it. But sometimes, as to-night--Well, there's +only one thing I can do: keep my tongue between my teeth as long as I +can, and then--get away somewhere and smash things till I'm black and +blue." + +"That's what you've been doing back in the woods?" King ventured to ask. + +"Rather. Anyhow, it's evened up my circulation and I can be decent +again. I'm not going to tell you what made me rage like the bull of +Bashan, for it wouldn't be safe yet to let loose on that. It's enough +that I can treat a good comrade like you as I did and still have him +stand by." + +"I felt a good deal in the way, but I'm glad now I was with you." + +"I'm glad, too, if it's only that you've discovered at last what manner +of man I am when the evil one gets hold of me. None of us likes to be +persistently overrated, you know." + +"I don't think the less of you for being angry when you had a just +cause, as I know you must have had." + +"It's not the being angry; it's the losing control." + +"But you didn't." + +"Didn't I?" A short, grim laugh testified to Burns's opinion on this +point. "Ask that woman I put on the train to-night. Jord, on her arm is +a black bruise where I gripped her when she lied to me; I gripped her--a +woman. You might as well know. Now--keep on respecting me if you can." + +"But I do," said Jordan King. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +A STRANGE DAY + + +"Len, will you go for a day in the woods with me?" + +Ellen Burns looked up from the old mahogany secretary which had been +hers in the southern-home days. She was busily writing letters, but the +request, from her busy husband, was so unusual that it arrested her +attention. Her glance travelled from his face to the window and back +again. + +"I know it's pretty frosty," he acknowledged, "but the sun is bright, +and I'll build you a windbreak that'll keep you snug. I'm aching for a +day off--with you." + +"Artful man! You know I can't resist when you put it that way, though I +ought not to leave this desk for two hours. Give me half an hour, and +tell me what you want for lunch." + +"Cynthia and I'll take care of that. She's putting up the stuff now, +subject to your approval." + +He was off to the kitchen, and Ellen finished the note she had begun, +put away the writing materials and letters, and ran up to her room. By +the end of the stipulated half hour she was down again, trimly clad in a +suit of brown tweeds, with a big coat for extra warmth and a close hat +and veil for breeze resistance. + +"That's my girl! You never look prettier to my eyes than when you are +dressed like this. It's the real comrade look you have then, and I feel +as if we were shoulder to shoulder, ready for anything that might come." + +"Just as if it weren't always that," she said in merry reproach as she +took her place beside him and the car rolled off. + +"It's always great fun to go off with you unexpectedly like this," she +went on presently. "It seems so long since we've done it. It's been such +a busy year. Is everybody getting well to-day, that you can manage a +whole day?" + +"All but one, and he doesn't need me just now. I could keep busy, of +course, but I got a sudden hankering for a day all alone with you in the +woods; and after that idea once struck me I'd have made way for it +anyhow, short of actually running away from duty." + +"You need it, I know. We'll just leave all care behind and remember +nothing except how happy we are to be together. That never grows old, +does it, Red?" + +"Never!" He spoke almost with solemnity, and gave her a long look as he +said it, which she met with one to match it. "You dear!" he murmured. +"Len, do you know I never loved you so well as I do to-day?" + +"I wonder why?" She was smiling, and her colour, always duskily soft in +her cheek, grew a shade warmer. "Is it the brown tweeds?" + +"It's the brown tweeds, and the midnight-dark hair, and the beautiful +black eyes, and--the lovely soul of my wife." + +"Why, Red, dear--and all this so early in the morning? How will you end +if you begin like this?" + +"I don't know--or care." Something strange looked out of his eyes for a +minute. "I know what I want to say now and I'm saying it. So much of the +time I'm too busy to make love to my wife, I'm going to do it +to-day--all day. I warn you now, so you can sidetrack me if you get +tired of it." + +"I'm very likely to," she said with a gay tenderness. "To have you make +love to me without the chance of a telephone call to break in will be a +wonderful treat." + +"It sure will to me." + +It was a significant beginning to a strange day. They drove for twenty +miles, to find a certain place upon a bluff overlooking a small lake of +unusual beauty, far out of the way of the ordinary motor traveller. +They climbed a steep hill, coming out of the wooded hillside into the +full sunlight of the late October day, where spread an extended view of +the countryside, brilliant with autumn foliage. The air was crisp and +invigorating, and a decided breeze was stirring upon this lofty point, +so that the windbreak which Burns began at once to build was a necessary +protection if they were to remain long. + +An hour of hard work, at which Ellen helped as much as she was allowed, +established a snug camp, its back against a great bowlder, its windward +side sheltered by a thick barrier of hemlocks cleverly placed, a brisk +bonfire burning in an angle where an improvised chimney carried off its +smoke and left the corner clear and warm. + +"There!" Burns exclaimed in a tone of satisfaction as he threw himself +down upon the pine needle-strewn ground at Ellen's side. "How's this for +a comfortable nest? Think we can spend six contented hours here, my +honey?" + +"Six days if you like. How I wish we could!" + +"So do I. Jove, how I'd like it! I haven't had enough of you to satisfy +me for many a moon. And there's no trying to get it, except by running +away like this." + +"We ought to do it oftener." + +"We ought, but we can't. At least we couldn't. Perhaps now--" + +He broke off, staring across the valley where the lake lay to the +distant hills, smoky blue and purple in spite of the clear sunlight +which lay upon them. + +"Perhaps now--what?" + +"Well--I might not be able to keep up my activity forever, and the time +might come when I should have to take less work and more rest." + +"But you said 'now.'" + +"Did I? I was just looking ahead a bit. Len, are you hungry, or shall we +wait a while for lunch?" + +"Don't you want a little sleep before you eat? You haven't had too much +of it lately." + +"It would taste rather good--if I might take it with my head in your +lap." + +She arranged her own position so that she could maintain it comfortably, +and he extended his big form at full length upon the rug he had brought +up from the car and upon which she was already sitting. He smiled up +into her face as he laid his head upon her knees, and drew one of her +hands into his. "Now your little boy is perfectly content," he said. + + * * * * * + +It was an hour before he stirred, an hour in which Ellen's eyes had +silently noted that which had escaped them hitherto, a curious change in +his colour as he lay with closed eyes, a thinness of the flesh over the +cheek bones, dark shadows beneath the eyes. Whether he slept she could +not be sure. But when he sat up again these signs of wear and tear +seemed to vanish at the magic of his smile, which had never been +brighter. Nevertheless she watched him with a new sense of anxiety, +wondering if there might really be danger of his splendid physique +giving way before the rigour of his life. + +She noted that he did not eat heartily at lunch, though he professed to +enjoy it; and afterward he was his old boyish self for a long time. Then +he grew quiet, and a silence fell between the pair while they sat +looking off into the distance, the October sunlight on their heads. + +And then, quite suddenly, something happened. + +"Red! What is the matter?" Ellen asked, startled. + +In spite of the summer warmth of the spot in which they sat her +husband's big frame had begun to quiver and shake before her very eyes. +Evidently he was trying hard to control the strange fit of shivering +which had seized him. + +"Don't be s-scared, d-dear," he managed to get out between rigid jaws. +"It's just a bit of a ch-chill. I'll b-be all right in a m-minute." + +"In all this sunshine? Why, Red!" Ellen caught up the big coat she had +brought to the place and laid it about his shoulders--"you must have +taken cold. But how could you? Come--we must go at once." + +"N-not just yet. I'll g-get over this s-soon." + +He drew his arms about his knees, clasping them and doing his best to +master the shivering, while Ellen watched him anxiously. Never in her +life with Red had she seen him cold. His rugged frame, accustomed to all +weathers, hardened by years of sleeping beside wide-opened windows in +the wintriest of seasons, was always healthily glowing with warmth when +others were frankly freezing. + +The chill was over presently, but close upon its heels followed +reaction, and Red Pepper's face flushed feverishly as he said, with a +gallant attempt at a smile: "Sit down again a minute, dear, while I tell +you what I'm up against. I wasn't sure, but this looks like it. You've +got to know now, because I'm undoubtedly in for a bit of trouble--and +that means you, too." + +She waited silently, but her hand slipped into his. To her surprise he +drew it gently away. "Try the other one," he said. "It's in better shape +for holding." + +She looked down at the hand he had withdrawn and which now lay upon his +knee. It was the firmly knit and sinewy hand she knew so well, the +typical hand of the surgeon with its perfectly kept, finely sensitive +fingertips, its broad and powerful thumb, its strong but not too thick +wrist. Not a blemish marked its fair surface, yet--was it very slightly +swollen? She could hardly be sure. + +"Dear, tell me," she begged. "What has happened? Are you hurt--or +ill--and haven't let me know?" + +"I thought it might not amount to anything; it's only a scratch in the +palm. But--" + +"Red--did you get it--operating? On what?" + +He nodded. "Operating. It's the usual way, the thing we all expect to +get some day. I've been lucky so far; that's all." + +"But--you didn't give yourself a scratch; you never have done that?" + +"No, not up to date anyhow. I might easily enough; I just haven't +happened to." + +"Amy didn't?--She couldn't!" + +"She didn't--and couldn't, thank heaven. She'd kill herself if she ever +did that unlucky trick. No, she wasn't assisting this time. It was an +emergency case, early yesterday morning--one of the other men brought in +the case. It was hopeless, but the family wanted us to try." + +"What sort of a case, Red?" Ellen's very lips had grown white. + +"Now see here, sweetheart, I had to tell you because I knew I was in +for a little trouble, but there's no need of your knowing any more than +this about it. It was just an accident--nobody's fault. The blamed +electric lights went off--for not over ten seconds, but it was the wrong +ten seconds. I didn't even know I was scratched till the thing began to +set up a row. I don't even yet understand how I got it in the palm. +That's unusual." + +"Who did it?" + +"I'm not going to tell you. He feels badly enough now, and it wasn't his +fault. He asked me at the time if he had touched me in the dark and I +said no. It was as slight a thing as that. If we'd known it at the time +we'd have fixed it up. We didn't, and that's all there was to it." + +"You must tell me what sort of a case it was, Red." + +He looked down at her. The two pairs of eyes met unflinchingly for a +minute, and each saw straight into the depths of the other. Burns +thought the eyes into which he gazed had never been more beautiful; +stabbed though they were now with intense shock, they were yet speaking +to him such utter love as it is not often in the power of man to +inspire. + +He managed still to talk lightly. "I expect you know. What's the use of +using scientific terms? The case was rottenly septic; never mind the +cause. But--I'm going to be able to throw the thing off. Just give me +time." + +"Let me see it, Red." + +Reluctantly he turned the hand over, showing the small spot in which was +quite clearly the beginning of trouble. "Doesn't look like much, does +it?" he said. + +"And it is not even protected." + +"What was the use? The infection came at the time." + +"And you did all that work in the windbreak. Oh, you ought not to have +done that!" + +"Nonsense, dear. I wanted to, and I did it mostly with my left hand +anyhow." + +"Your blood must be of the purest," she said steadily. + +"It sure is. I expect I'll get my reward now for letting some things +alone that many men care for, and that I might have cared for, too--if +it hadn't been for my mother--and my wife." + +"You are strong--strong." + +"I am--a regular Titan. Yes, we'll fight this thing through somehow; +only I have to warn you it'll likely be a fight. I'll go to the +hospital." + +"No!" It was a cry. + +"No? Better think about that. Hospital's the best place for such cases." + +"It can't be better than home--when it's like ours. We'll fight our +fight there, Red--and nowhere else." + +He put one hand to his arm suddenly with an involuntary movement and a +contraction of the brow. But in the next breath he was smiling again. +"Perhaps we'd better be getting back," he admitted. "My head's beginning +to be a trifle unsteady. But, I'm glad a thousand times we've had this +day." + +"Was it wise to take it, dear?" + +"I'm sure of it. What difference could it make? Now we've had it--to +remember." + +She shivered, there in the warm October sunlight. A chill seemed +suddenly to have come into the air, and to have struck her heart. + +No more words passed between them until they were almost home. Then +Ellen said, very quietly: "Red, would you be any safer in the hospital +than at home?" + +"Not safer, but where it would be easier for all concerned, in case +things get rather thick." + +"Easier for you, too?" + +He looked at her. "Do I have to speak the truth?" + +"You must. If you would rather be there--" + +"I would rather be as near you as I can stay. There's no use denying +that. But Van Horn wants me at the hospital." + +"Is he to look after you?" + +"Yes. Queer, isn't it? But he wants the job. No," at the unspoken +question in her face, "it wasn't Van. But he came in just as the trouble +began to show and--well, you know we're the best of friends now, and I +think I'd rather have him--and Buller, good old Buller--than anybody +else." + +"Oh, but you won't need them both?" she cried, and then bit her lip. + +"Of course not. But you know how the profession are--if one of them gets +down they all fall over one another to offer their services." + +"They may all offer them, but they will have to come to you. You are +going to stay at home. You shall have the big guest room--made as you +want it. Just tell me what to do--" + +"You may as well strip it," he told her quietly. "And--Len, I'd rather +be right there than anywhere else in the world. I think, when it's +ready, I'll just go to bed. I'd bluff a bit longer if I could, +but--perhaps--" + +"I'm sure you ought," she said as quietly as he. But she was very glad +when the car turned in at the driveway. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +CLEARED DECKS + + +Two hours later, under her direction and with her efficient help, +Cynthia and Johnny Carruthers in medical parlance had "stripped" the +guest room, putting it into the cleared bare order most useful for the +purpose needed. If Ellen's heart was heavy as she saw the change made +she let nothing show. And when, presently, she called her husband from +the couch where he had lain, feverish and beginning to be tortured by +pain, and put him between the cool, fresh sheets, she had her reward in +the look he gave, first at the room and then at her. + +"Decks all cleared for action," he commented with persistent +cheerfulness, "and the captain on deck. Well--let them begin to fire; +we're ready. All I know is that I'm glad I'm on your ship. Just pray, +Len, will you--that I keep my nerve?" + +This was the beginning, as Burns himself had foreseen, of that which +proved indeed to be a long fight. Strong of physique though he +unquestionably was, pure as was the blood which flowed in his veins, +the poison he had received unwittingly and therefore taken no immediate +measures to combat was able to overcome his powers of resistance and +take shattering hold upon his whole organism. There followed day after +day and week after week of prostrating illness, during which he suffered +much torturing pain in the affected hand and arm, with profound +depression of mind and body, though he bore both as bravely as was to +have been expected. Two nurses, Amy Mathewson and Selina Arden, +alternated in attendance upon him, day and night, and Ellen herself was +always at hand to act as substitute, or to share in the care of the +patient when it was more than ordinarily exacting. + +As she watched the powerful form of her husband grow daily weaker before +the assaults of one of the most treacherous enemies modern science has +to face, she felt herself in the grip of a great dread which could not +be for an hour thrown off. She did not let go of her courage; but +beneath all her serenity of manner--remarked often in wonder by the +nurses and physicians--lay the fear which at times amounted to a +conviction that for her had come the end of earthly happiness. + +She was able to appreciate none the less the devoted and skillful +attention given to Burns by his colleagues. Dr. Max Buller had long been +his attached friend and ally, and of him such service as he now +rendered was to have been counted on. But concerning Dr. James Van Horn, +although Ellen well knew how deeply he felt in Burns's debt for having +in all probability saved his life only a few months earlier, she had had +no notion what he had to offer in return. She had not imagined how warm +a heart really lay beneath that polished urbanity of manner with its +suggestion of coldness in the very tone of his voice--hitherto. She grew +to feel a distinct sense of relief and dependence every time he entered +the door, and his visits were so many that it came to seem as if his +motor were always standing at the curb. + +"You know, Len, Van's a tremendous trump," Burns himself said to her +suddenly, in the middle of one trying night when Doctor Van Horn had +looked in unexpectedly to see if he might ease his patient and secure +him a chance of rest after many hours of pain. "It seems like a queer +dream, sometimes, to open my eyes and see him sitting there, looking at +me as if I were a younger brother and he cared a lot." + +"He does care," Ellen answered positively. "You would be even surer of +it if you could hear him talk with me alone. He speaks of you as if he +loved you--and what is there strange about that? Everybody loves you, +Red. I'm keeping a list of the people who come to ask about you and +send you things. You haven't heard of half of them. And to-day Franz +telephoned to offer to come and play for you some night when you +couldn't sleep with the pain. He begged to be allowed to do the one +thing he could to show his sympathy." + +"Bless his heart! I'd like to hear him. I often wish my ears would +stretch to reach him in his orchestra." Burns moved restlessly as he +spoke. A fresh invasion of trouble in his hand and arm was reaching a +culmination, and no palliative measures could ease him long. "You've no +idea, Len," he whispered as Ellen's hand strayed through his heavy +coppery locks with the soothing touch he loved well, "what it means to +me to have you stand by me like this. If I give in now it won't be for +want of your supporting courage." + +"It's you who have the courage, Red--wonderful courage." + +He shook his head. "It's just the thought of you--and the Little-Un--and +Bobby Burns--that's all. If it wasn't for you--" + +He turned away his head. She knew the thing he had to fear--the thing +she feared for him. Though his very life was in danger it was not that +which made the threatening depths of black shadow into which he looked. +If he should come out of this fight with a crippled right hand there +would be no more work for him about which he could care. Neither Van +Horn nor Buller would admit that there was danger of this; but Grayson, +who had seen the hand yesterday; Fields, who was making blood counts for +the case; Lenhart and Stevenson, who had come to make friendly calls +every few days and who knew from Fields how things were going--all were +shaking their heads and saying in worried tones that it looked pretty +"owly" for the hand, and that Van Horn and Buller would do well if they +pulled Burns through at all. + +Outside of the profession Jordan King was closest in touch with Burns's +case. He persistently refused to believe that all would not come out as +they desired. He came daily, brought all sorts of offerings for the +patient's comfort, and always ran up to see his friend, hold his left +hand for a minute and smile at him, without a hint in his ruddy face of +the wrench at the heart he experienced each time at sight of the +steadily increasing devastation showing in the face on the pillow. + +"You're a trump, Jord," Burns said weakly to him one morning. King had +just finished a heart-warming report of certain messages brought from +some of Burns's old chronic patients in the hospital wards, where it was +evident the young man had gone on purpose to collect them. "Every time I +look at you I think what an idiot I was ever to imagine you needed me +to put backbone into you, last spring." + +"But I did--and you did it. And if you think I showed more backbone to +go through a thing that hardly took it out of me at all than you to +stand this devilish slow torture and weakness--well, it just shows +you've lost your usual excellent judgment. See?" + +"I see that you're one of the best friends a man ever had. There's only +one other who could do as much to keep my head above water--and he isn't +here." + +"Why isn't he? Who is he?" demanded King eagerly. "Tell me and I'll get +him." + +"No, no. He could do no more than is being done. I merely get to +thinking of him and wishing I could see him. It's my old friend and chum +of college days, John Leaver, of Baltimore." + +"The big surgeon I've heard you and Mrs. Burns speak of? Great heavens, +he'd come in a minute if he knew!" + +"I've no doubt he would, but I happen to know he's abroad just now." + +King studied his friend's face, saw that Burns was already weary with +the brief visit, and soon went away. But it was to a consultation with +Mrs. Burns as to the possibility of communicating with Doctor Leaver. + +"I wrote his wife not long ago of Red's illness," Ellen said, "but I +didn't state all the facts; somehow I couldn't bring myself to do that. +They are in London; they go over every winter. I had a card only +yesterday from Charlotte giving a new address and promising to write +soon." + +"Wasn't he the man you told me of who had a bad nervous breakdown a few +years ago? The one Red had stay with you here until he got back his +nerve?" + +"Yes; and he has been even a more brilliant operator ever since." + +"I remember the whole story; there was a lot of thrill in it as you told +it. How Red made him rest and build up and then fairly forced him to +operate, against his will, to prove to him that he had got his nerve +back? Jove! Do you think that man wouldn't cross the ocean in a hurry if +he thought he could lift his finger to help our poor boy?" + +King's speech had taken on such a fatherly tone of late that Ellen was +not surprised to hear him thus allude to his senior. + +"Yes, Jack Leaver would do anything for Red, but I know Red would never +let us summon him from so far." + +"Summon him from the antipodes--I would. And we don't have to consult +Red. His wish is enough. Leave it to me, Mrs. Burns; I'll take all the +responsibility." + +She smiled at him, feeling that she must not express the very natural +and unwelcome thought that to call a friend from so far away was to +admit that the situation was desperate. Burns had said many times that +Doctor Van Horn was using the very latest and most acceptable methods +for his relief, and that his confidence in him was absolute. None the +less she knew that the very sight of John Leaver's face would be like +that of a shore light to a ship groping in a heavy fog. + +Within twenty-four hours Jordan King came dashing in to wave a cable +message before her. "Read that, and thank heaven that you have such +friends in the world." + +At a glance her eyes took in the pregnant line, and the first tears she +had shed leaped to her eyes and misted them, so that she had to wipe +them away to read the welcome words again. + + We sail Saturday. Love to Doctor and Mrs. Burns. + + LEAVER. + +A week later, Burns, waking from an uneasy slumber, opened his eyes upon +a new figure at his bedside. For a moment he stared uncomprehending into +the dark, distinguished face of his old friend, then put out his +uninjured hand with a weak clutch. + +"Are you real, Jack?" he demanded in a whisper. + +"As real as that bedpost. And mighty glad to see you, my dear boy. They +tell me the worst is over, and that you're improving. That's worth the +journey to see." + +"You didn't come from--England?" + +"Of course I did. I'd come from the end of the world, and you know it! +Why in the name of friendship didn't somebody send me word before?" + +"Who sent it now?" + +"That's a secret. I hoped to be able to do something for you, Red, just +to even up the score a little, but the thing that's really been done has +been by yourself. You put your own clean blood into this tussle and it's +brought you through." + +"I don't feel so very far through yet, but I suppose I'm not quite so +much of a dead fish as I was a week ago. There's only one thing that +bothers me." + +"I can guess. Well, Red, I saw Doctor Van Horn on my way upstairs, and +he tells me you're going to get a good hand out of this. He'll be up +shortly to dress it, and then I may see for myself." + +"That will be a comfort. I've wished a thousand times you might, though +nobody could have given me better care than these bully fellows have. +But I've a sort of superstition that one look at trouble from Jack +Leaver is enough to make it cut and run." + +By and by Dr. John Leaver came downstairs and joined his wife and Ellen. +His face was grave with its habitual expression, but it lighted as the +two looked up. "He's had about as rough a time as a man can and weather +it," he said; "but I think the trouble is cornered at last, and there'll +be no further outbreak. And the hand will come out better than could +have been expected. He will be able to use it perfectly in time. But it +will take him a good while to build up. He must have a sea voyage--a +long one. That will do you all kinds of good, too," he added, his keen +eyes on the face of his friend's wife. + +"She looks etherealized," Charlotte Leaver said, studying Ellen +affectionately. "You've had a long, anxious time, haven't you, Len, +darling?" Mrs. Leaver went on. "And we knew nothing--we who care more +than anybody in the world. You can't imagine how glad we are to be here +now, even though we can't help a bit." + +"You can help, you do. And I know what it means to Red to have his +beloved friend come to him." + +"Then I hope you know what it means to me to come," said John Leaver. + +The Leavers stayed for several days, while Burns continued to improve, +and before they left they had the pleasure of seeing him up and +partially dressed, the bandages on his injured hand reduced in extent, +and his eyes showing his release from torture. His face and figure gave +touching evidence of what he had endured, but he promised them that +before they saw him again he would be looking like himself. + +"I wonder," Burns said, on the March day when he first came downstairs +and dropped into his old favourite place in a corner of the big blue +couch, "whether any other fellow was ever so pampered as I. I look like +thirty cents, but I feel, in spite of this abominable limpness, as if my +stock were worth a hundred cents on the dollar. And when we get back +from the ocean trip I expect to be a regular fighting Fijian." + +"You look better every day, dear," Ellen assured him. "And when it's all +over, and you have done your first operation, you'll come home and say +you were never so happy in your life." + +Burns laughed. He looked over at Jordan King, who had come in on purpose +to help celebrate the event of the appearance downstairs. "She promises +me an operation as she would promise the Little-Un a sweetie, eh? Well, +I can't say she isn't right. I was a bit tired when this thing began, +but when I get my strength back I know how my little old 'lab' and +machine shop will call to me. Just to-day I got an idea in my head that +I believe will work out some day. My word, I know it will!" + +The other two looked at each other, smiling joyously. + +"He's getting well," said Ellen Burns. + +"No doubt of it in the world," agreed Jordan King. + +"Sit down here where I can look at you both," commanded the +convalescent. "Jord, isn't my wife something to look at in that blue +frock she's wearing? I like these things she melts into evenings, like +that smoky blue she has on now. It seems to satisfy my eyes." + +"Not much wonder in that. She would satisfy anybody's eyes." + +"That's quite enough about me," Ellen declared. "The thing that's really +interesting is that your eyes are brighter to-night, Red, than they have +been for two long months. I believe it's getting downstairs." + +"Of course it is. Downstairs has been a mythical sort of place for a +good while. I couldn't quite believe in it. I've thought a thousand +times of this blue couch and these pillows. I've thought of that old +grand piano of yours, and of how it would seem to hear you play it +again. Play for me now, will you, Len?" + +She sat down in her old place, and his eyes watched her hungrily, as +King could plainly see. To the younger man the love between these two +was something to study and believe in, something to hope for as a +wonderful possibility in his own case. + +When Ellen stopped playing Burns spoke musingly. Speech seemed a +necessity for him to-night--happiness overflowed and must find +expression. + +"I've had a lot of stock advice for my patients that'll mean something I +understand for myself now," he said. He sat almost upright among the +blue pillows, his arm outstretched along the back of the couch, his long +legs comfortably extended. It was no longer the attitude of the invalid +but of the well man enjoying earned repose. "I wonder how often I've +said to some tired mother or too-busy housewife who longed for rest: 'If +you were to become crippled or even forbidden to work any more and made +to rest for good, how happy these past years would seem to you when you +were tired because you had accomplished something.' I can say that now +with personal conviction of its truth. It looks to me as if to come in +dog-tired and drop into this corner with the memory of a good job done +would be the best fun I've ever had." + +"I know," King nodded. "I learned that, too, last spring." + +"Of course you did. And now, instead of going to work, I've got to take +this blamed sea voyage of a month. Van and Leaver are pretty hard on me, +don't you think? The consolation in that, though, is that my wife needs +it quite as much as I do. I want to tan those cheeks of hers. Len, will +you wear the brown tweeds on shipboard?" + +"Of course I will. How your mind seems to run to clothes to-night. What +will Your Highness wear himself?" + +"The worst old clothes I can find. Then when I get back I'll go to the +tailor's and start life all over again, with the neatest lot of stuff he +can make me--a regular honeymoon effect." Burns laughed, lifting his +chin with the old look of purpose and power touching his thin face. + +"I'm happy to-night," he went on; "there's no use denying it. I'm not +sorry, now it's over, I've had this experience, for I've learned some +things I've never known before and wouldn't have found out any other +way. I know now what it means to be down where life doesn't seem worth +much, and how it feels to have the other fellow trying to pull you out. +I know how the whisper of a voice you love sounds to you in the middle +of a black night, when you think you can't bear another minute of pain. +Oh, I know a lot of things I can't talk about, but they'll make a +difference in the future. If I don't have more patience with my patients +it'll be because memory is a treacherous thing, and I've forgotten what +I have no business to forget--because the good Lord means me to +remember!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +WHITE LILACS AGAIN + + +It was the first day of May. Burns and Ellen had not been at home two +days after their return from the long, slow sea voyage which had done +wonders for them both, when Burns received a long-distance message which +sent him to his wife with his eyes sparkling in the old way. + +"Great luck, Len!" he announced. "I'm to get my first try-out in +operating, after the late unpleasantness, on an out-of-town case. Off in +an hour with Amy for a place two hundred miles away in a spot I never +heard of--promises to be interesting. Anyhow, I feel like a small boy +with his first kite, likely to go straight off the ground hitched to the +tail of it." + +"I'm glad for you, Red. And I wish"--she bit her lip and turned +away--"it may be a wonderful case." + +"That's not what you started to say." He came close, laid a hand on +either side of her face, and turned it up so that he could look into it, +his lips smiling. "Tell me. I'll wager I know what you wish." + +"No, you can't." + +"That you could go with me--to take Amy's place and assist." + +A flood of colour poured over her face, such a telltale, significant +colour as he had rarely seen there before. She would have concealed it +from him, but he was merciless. A strange, happy look came into his own +face. "Len, don't hide that from me. It's the one thing I've always +wished you'd show, and you never have. I'm such a jealous beggar myself +I've wanted you to care--that way, and I've never been able to discover +a trace of it." + +"But I'm not really jealous in the way you think. How could I be?--with +not the slightest cause. It's only--envy of Amy because she is--so +necessary to you. O Red, I never, never meant to say it!" + +"I'd rather hear you say it than anything else on earth. I'd like to +hear you own that you were mad with jealousy, because I've been eaten up +with it myself ever since I first laid eyes on you. Not that you've ever +given me a reason for it, but because it's my red-headed nature. Now I +must go; but I'll take your face with me, my Len, and if I do a good +piece of work it'll be for love of you." + +"And of your work, Red. I'm not jealous of that; I'm too proud of it." + +"I know you are, bless you." + +Then he was off, all his old vigour showing in his preparations for the +hurried trip, and as he went away Ellen felt as might those on shore +watching a lusty life-saver put off in a boat to pull for a sinking +ship. + + * * * * * + +Burns and Amy Mathewson were away three days, during which Red kept +Ellen even more closely in touch with himself than usual, by means of +the long wire. When he returned it was with the bearing of a conqueror, +for the case had tried his regained mettle and he had triumphed more +surely than he could have hoped. + +"The hand's as good as new, Len, and the touch not a particle affected. +Van's a trump, and I stopped on the way out to tell him so. He was +pleased as a boy; think of it, Len--my ancient enemy and my new good +friend! And the case is fine as silk. They've a good local man to look +after it till I come again, which will be Thursday. And I'm going to +drive there--and take you--and Jord King and Jord's mother. How's that +for a plan?" + +"It sounds very jolly, Red, but will the Kings go? And why Mrs. King? +Will she care to?" + +"Because I've found some old friends of hers in the place, though I'll +not tell her whom. Besides, I want to keep on her right side, for +reasons. And Jord's back has been bothering him lately and I've +prescribed a rest. We'll take the Kings' limousine and go in state. +It'll be arranged in five minutes, see if it won't. By the way, Jord +says Aleck's new arm is really going to do him some service besides +improving his looks." + +He pulled her away to the telephone and held her on his knee while he +talked to Jordan King, giving her a laughing hug, when, to judge by the +things he was saying into the transmitter, he had brought about his +effect. + +"Yes, I know I sound crazy," he admitted to King, "but you must give +something to a man who has been buried alive and dug up again. I've +taken this notion and I'm going to carry it through. Mrs. King will +enjoy every foot of the way, and you and I will jump out and pick apple +blossoms for the ladies whenever they ask. It's a peach of a plan, and +the whole idea is to minister to my pride. I want to arrive in a great +prince of a car like yours and impress the natives down there. See? Yes, +go and put it up to your mother, and then call me up. Don't you dare say +no!" + +"No wonder he's astonished," Ellen commented while they waited. "For +you, who are never content except when you're at the steering wheel, to +ask Jordan, who is another just like you, to elect to travel in a +limousine with a liveried chauffeur--well, I admit I am puzzled myself." + +"Why, it's simple enough. I want to take you and Mrs. Alexander King. +She wouldn't go a step in Jord's roadster at his pace. And if she would, +and we went in pairs, Jord would be always wanting to change off and +take you with him--and as you very well know I'm not made that way. Stop +guessing, Len, and prepare yourself to break down Mrs. King's +opposition, if she makes any--which I don't expect." + +Mrs. King made no opposition, or none which her son thought best to +convey to the Burnses, and the trip was arranged. + +"Is there a good hotel in the place?" Ellen asked. + +"No hotel within miles--nor anything else. We're to stay overnight with +the family. You won't mind. They can put us up pretty comfortably, even +if not just as we're accustomed to be." Burns's eyes were twinkling, and +he refused to say more on the subject. + +It did not matter. It was early May, and the world was a wilderness of +budding life, and to go motoring seemed the finest way possible to get +into sympathy with spring at her loveliest. And although Ellen would +have much preferred to drive alone with her husband in his own car, she +found herself anticipating the affair, as it was now arranged, with not +a little curiosity to stimulate her interest. Mrs. Alexander King, for +her son's sake, was sure to be a complaisant and agreeable companion, +and Ellen was glad to feel that such a pleasure might come her way. + +"This is great stuff!" exulted Jordan King early on Thursday morning as +the big, shining car, standing before Burns's door, received its full +complement of passengers. "Mother and I are tremendously honoured, +aren't we, mother?" + +"Even though we had the audacity to invite ourselves and ask for this +magnificent car?" Burns inquired, grasping Mrs. Alexander King's gloved +hand, and smiling at her as her delicate face was lifted to him with a +look of really charming greeting. He knew well enough that she liked him +in spite of certain pretty plain words he had said to her in the past, +and he had prepared himself to make her like him still better on this +journey together. "I'm the one who is responsible, you know. I've merely +broken out in a new place." + +"We appreciate your caring to include us in your party," Mrs. King said +cordially. "The car is all too little used, for Jordan prefers his own, +and I go about mostly in the small coupe. I have never taken so long a +drive as you plan, and it will doubtless be a pleasant experience. I see +so little of my son I am happy to be with him on such a trip." + +"Altogether we're mightily pleased with the whole arrangement," declared +Jordan King, regarding Mrs. Burns with high approval. "Mother, did you +ever see a more distinguished-looking pair?" + +"In spite of our brown faces?" Ellen challenged him gayly. + +"My wife's face simply turns peachy when she tans. I look like an +Indian," observed Burns, bestowing certain professional luggage where it +would be most out of the way. + +"That's it; you've said it. Great Indian Chief go make big medicine for +sick squaw; take along whole wigwam; wigwam tickled to death to go!" And +King settled himself with an air of complete satisfaction. + +He had had no word from Anne Linton for nearly two months, and was as +restless as a young man may well be when his affairs do not go to please +him. She had kept her promise and had written from time to time, but +though her letters were the most interesting human documents King had +ever dreamed a woman could write, they were, from the point of view of +the suitor, extremely unsatisfying. As she had agreed, she had given him +with each letter an address to which he might send an immediate reply, +and he had made the most of each such opportunity; but, since it takes +two to seal a bargain, he had not been able to feel his cause much +advanced by all his efforts. He had welcomed this chance to accompany +Burns as a diversion from his restless thoughts, for a few days' +interval in his engineering plans, caused by a delay in the arrival of +certain necessary material, was making him wild with eagerness for +something--anything--to happen. + +Two hundred miles in a high-powered car over finely macadamized roads +are more quickly and comfortably covered in these days than a +thirty-mile drive behind horses over such country highways as existed a +decade ago. Aleck, at the wheel, his master's orders in his willing ears +from time to time, gradually accelerated his rate of speed until by the +end of the first two hours he was carrying his party along at a pace +which Mrs. King had frequently condemned as one which would be to her +unbearable. Burns and King exchanged glances more than once as the car +flew past other travellers, and the good lady, talking happily with +Ellen or absorbed in some far-reaching view, took no note of the fact +that she was annihilating space with a smooth swiftness comparable only +to the flight of some big, strong-winged bird. + +"Over halfway there, and plenty of time for lunch," Burns announced. +"And here's the best roadside inn in the country. If it hadn't been for +our coming this way I should have suggested bringing our own hampers, +but I wanted you to have some of this little Englishman's brook trout +and hot scones." + +Mrs. King enjoyed that hot and delicious meal as she had seldom enjoyed +a luncheon anywhere. As she sat at the faultlessly served table, her +eyes travelling from the wide view at the window to the faces of her +companions, she grew more and more cheerful in manner, and was even +heard to laugh softly aloud now and then at one of Burns's gay quips, +turning to Ellen in appreciation of her husband's wit, or to Jordan +himself as he came back at his friend with a rejoinder worth hearing. + +"This is doing my mother a world of good," King said in Ellen's ear as +the party came out on a wide porch to rest for a half hour before taking +to the car again. "I don't know when I've seen her expand like this and +seem really to be forgetting her cares and sorrows." + +"It's a pleasure to watch her," Ellen agreed. "Red vowed this morning +that he meant to bring about that very thing, and he's succeeding much +better than I had dared to hope." + +"Who wouldn't be jolly in a party where Red was one? Did you ever see +the dear fellow so absolutely irresistible? Sometimes I think there's a +bit of hypnotism about Red, he gets us all so completely." + +"What are you two whispering about?" said a voice behind them, and they +turned to look into the brilliant hazel eyes both were thinking of at +the moment. + +"You," King answered promptly. + +"Rebelling against the autocracy of the Indian Chief?" + +"No. Prostrating ourselves before his bulky form. He's some Indian +to-day." + +"He will be before the day is over, I promise you. He'll call a council +around the campfire to-night, and plenty pipes will be smoked. Everybody +do as Big Chief says, eh?" + +"Sure thing, Geronimo; that's what we came for." + +"You don't know what you came for. Absolutely preposterous this thing +is--surgeon going to visit his case and bringing along a lot of people +who don't know a mononuclear leucocyte from an eosinophile cell." + +"Do you know a vortex filament from a diametral plane?" demanded King. + +Burns laughed. "Come, let's be off! I must spare half an hour to show +Mrs. King a certain view somewhat off the main line." + +The afternoon was gone before they could have believed it, detours +though there were several, as there usually are in a road-mending +season. As the car emerged from a long run through wooded country and +passed a certain landmark carefully watched for by Red Pepper, he spoke +to Aleck. + +"Run slowly now, please. And be ready to turn to the left at a point +that doesn't show much beforehand." + +They were proceeding through somewhat sparsely settled country, though +marked here and there by comfortable farmhouses of a more than +ordinarily attractive type--apparently homes of prosperous people with +an eye to appearances. Then quite suddenly the car, rounding a turn, +came into a different region, one of cultivated wildness, of studied +effects so cleverly disguised that they would seem to the unobservant +only the efforts of nature at her best. A long, heavily shaded avenue of +oaks, with high, untrimmed hedges of shrubbery on each side, curved +enticingly before them, and all at once, Burns, looking sharply ahead, +called, "There, by that big pine, Aleck--to the left." In a minute more +the car turned in at a point where a rough stone gateway marked the +entrance to nothing more extraordinary than a pleasant wood. + +"Patient lives in a hut in the forest?" King inquired with interest. +"Or a rich man's hunting lodge?" + +"You'll soon see." Burns's eyes were ahead; a slight smile touched his +lips. + +The car swept around curve after curve of the wood, came out upon the +shore of a small lake and, skirting it halfway round, plunged into a +grove of pines. Then, quite without warning, there showed beyond the +pines a long, white-plumed row of small trees of a sort unmistakable--in +May. Beside the row lay a garden, gay with all manner of spring flowers, +and farther, through the trees, began to gleam the long, low outlines of +a great house. + +"Stop just here, Aleck, for a minute," Burns requested, and the car came +to a standstill. Burns looked at Jordan King. + +"Ever see that row of white lilacs before, Jord?" he asked with +interest. + +King was staring at it, a strange expression of mingled perplexity and +astonishment upon his fine, dark face. After a minute he turned to +Burns. + +"What--when--where--" he stammered, and stopped, gazing again at the +lilac hedge and the box-bordered beds with their splashes of bright +colour. + +"Well, I don't know what, when, or where, if you don't," Burns returned. + +But evidently King did know, or it came to him at that instant, for he +set his lips in a certain peculiar way which his friend understood meant +an attempt at quick disguise of strong feeling. He gave his mother one +glance and sat back in his seat. Then he looked again at Burns. "What is +this, anyway?" he asked rather sternly. "The home of your patient, or a +show place you've stopped to let us look at?" + +"My patient's in the house up there. Drive on, Aleck, please. They'll be +expecting us at the back of the house, where the long porches are, and +where they're probably having afternoon tea at this minute." He glanced +at his watch. "Happy time to arrive, isn't it?" + +Ellen found herself experiencing a most extraordinary sensation of +excitement as the car rounded the drive and approached the porch, where +she could see a number of people gathered. The place was not more +imposing than many with which she was familiar, and if it had been the +home of one of the world's greatest there would have been nothing +disconcerting to her in the prospect. But something in her husband's +manner assured her that he had been preparing a surprise for them all, +and she had no means of guessing what it might be. The little hasty +sketch of lilac trees against a spring sky, though she had seen it, had +naturally made no such impression upon her as upon King, and she did +not even recall it now. + +The car rolled quietly up to the porch steps, and immediately a tall +figure sprang down them. "It's Gardner Coolidge, my old college friend, +Len," Burns said in his wife's ear. "Remember him?" The afternoon +sunlight shone upon the smooth, dark hair and thin, aristocratic face of +a man who spoke eagerly, his quick glance sweeping the occupants of the +car. + +"Mrs. King! This is a great pleasure, I assure you--a great pleasure. +Mrs. Burns--we are delighted. And this is your son, Mrs. King--welcome +to you, my dear sir! Red, no need to say we're glad to see you back. Let +me help you, Mrs. King. Don't tell me you wouldn't have known me; that +would be a blow. Alicia"--he turned to the graceful figure approaching +across the porch to meet the elder lady of the party as she came up the +steps upon the arm of the man who had taken her from the car--"Mrs. +King, this is my wife." + +Red Pepper Burns, laughing and shaking hands warmly with Alicia +Coolidge, was watching Mrs. Alexander King as, after the first look of +bewilderment, she cried out softly with pleasure at recognizing the son +of an old friend. + +"But it has all been kept secret from me," she was saying. "I had no +possible idea of where we were coming, and I am sure my son had not." +She turned to that son, but she could not get his attention, for the +reason that his astonished gaze was fastened upon a person who had at +that moment appeared in the doorway and paused there. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +RED'S DEAREST PATIENTS + + +Jordan King looked, and looked again, and it was a wonder he did not rub +his eyes to make sure he was fully awake. As he looked the figure in the +doorway came forward. It was that of a girl in a white serge coat and +skirt, with a smart little white hat upon her richly ruddy hair, and the +look, from head to foot, of one who had just returned to a place where +she belonged. And the next instant Anne Linton was greeting Ellen Burns +and coming up to be presented to Mrs. Alexander King. + +"This is my little sister, Mrs. King," said Gardner Coolidge, smiling, +and putting his arm about the white-serge-clad shoulders. "She is your +hostess, you know. Alicia and I are only making her a visit." + +"I am so glad you are here, Mrs. King," said a voice Jordan King well +remembered, and Anne Linton's eyes looked straight into those of her +oldest guest, whose own were puzzled. + +"I think," said Mrs. King, holding the firm young hand which she had +taken, "I have seen you before, my dear, though my memory--" + +"Yes, Mrs. King," the girl replied--and there was not the smallest +shadow of triumph discernible in her tone or look--"you have. I came to +see your son in the hospital, with Mrs. Burns, just before I left. It's +not strange you have forgotten me, for we went away almost at once. We +are so delighted to have you come to see us. Isn't it delightful that +you knew our mother so well at school?" + +Well, it came Jordan King's turn in the end, although Anne Linton, so +extraordinarily labelled "hostess" by her brother, discharged every duty +of greeting her other guests before she turned to him. Meanwhile he had +stood, frankly staring, hat in hand and growing colour on his cheek, +while his eyes seemed to grow darker and darker under his heavily marked +brows. When Anne turned to him he had no words for her, and hardly a +smile, though his good breeding came to his rescue and put him through +the customary forms of action, dazed though he yet was. He found himself +presented to other people on the porch, whom he recognized as +undoubtedly those whom he had met in the passing car at the time when he +was in doubt as to Anne's identity. Her aunt, uncle, and cousins they +proved to be, though the young man whom he remembered as being present +on that occasion was now happily absent. Jordan King found himself +completely reconciled to this at once. + +"How is our patient?" Burns said to Anne at the first opportunity. +"Shall I go up at once?" + +"Oh, please wait a minute, Doctor Burns; I want to go with you, and I +must see my guests having some tea first." + +There followed, for King, what seemed an interminable interval of time, +during which he was forced to sit beside one of Anne's girl cousins--and +a very pretty girl she was, too, only he didn't seem able to appreciate +it--drinking tea, and handing sugar, and doing all the proper things. In +the midst of this Anne vanished with Red Pepper at her heels, leaving +the tea table to Mrs. Coolidge. At this point, however, King found +himself glad to listen to Miss Stockton. + +"I don't suppose anybody in the world but Anne Linton Coolidge would +have thought of sending two hundred miles for a surgeon to operate on +her housekeeper," she was saying when his attention was arrested by her +words. "But she thinks such a lot of Timmy--Mrs. Timmins--she would pay +any sum to keep her in the world. She was Anne's nurse, you see, and of +course Anne is fond of her. And I'm sure we're glad she did send for +him, for it gave us the pleasure of meeting Doctor Burns, and of course +we understand now why she thought nobody else in the world could pull +Timmy through. He's such an interesting personality, don't you think so? +We're all crazy about him." + +"Oh, yes, everybody's crazy about him," King admitted readily. "And +certainly two hundred miles isn't far to send for a surgeon these days." + +"Of course not--only I don't suppose it's done every day for one's +housekeeper, do you? But nobody ever knows what Anne's going to +do--least of all now, when she's just back, after the most extraordinary +performance." She stopped, looking at him curiously. "I suppose you know +all about it--much more than we, in fact, since you met her when she was +in that hospital. Did you ever hear of a rich girl's doing such a thing +anyway? Going off to sell books for a whole year just because"--she +stopped again, and bit her lip, then went on quickly: "Everybody knows +about it, and you would be sure to hear it sooner or later. Doctor Burns +knows, anyhow, and--" + +"Please don't tell me anything I oughtn't to hear," Jordan's sense of +honour impelled him to say. He recognized the feminine type before him, +and though he longed to know all about everything he did not want to +know it in any way Anne would not like. + +But there was no stopping the fluffy-haired young person. "Really, +everybody knows; the countryside fairly rang with it a year ago. You +might even have read it in the papers, only you wouldn't remember. A +girl book agent killed herself in Anne's house here because Anne +wouldn't buy her book. Did you ever hear of anything so absurd as Anne's +thinking it was her fault? Of course the girl was insane, and Anne had +absolutely nothing to do with it. And then Anne took the girl's book and +went off to sell it herself--and find out, she said, how such things +could happen. I don't know whether she found out." Miss Stockton laughed +very charmingly. "All I know is we're tremendously thankful to have her +back. Nothing's the same with her away. We don't know if she'll stay, +though. Nobody can tell about Anne, ever." + +"Is this your home, too?" King managed to ask. His brain was whirling +with the shock of this astonishing revelation. He wanted to get off by +himself and think about it. + +"Oh, no, indeed, no such luck. We live across the lake in a much less +beautiful place, only of course we're here a great deal when Anne's +home. My mother would be a mother to Anne if Anne would let her, but +she's the most independent creature--prefers to live here with just +Timmy and old Campbell, the butler who's been with the family since +time began. Timmy's more than a housekeeper, of course. Anne's made +almost a real chaperon out of her, and she is very dignified and nice." + +King would have had the entire family history, he was sure, if a +diversion had not occurred in the nature of a general move to show the +guests to their rooms, with the appearance of servants, and the removal +of luggage. In his room presently, therefore, King had a chance to get +his thoughts together. One thing was becoming momentarily clear to him: +his being here was with Anne's permission--and she was willing to see +him; she had kept her promise. As for all the rest, he didn't care much. +And when he thought of the moment during which his mother had looked so +kindly into Anne's eyes, not recognizing her, he laughed aloud. Let Mrs. +King retreat from that position now if she wanted to. As for himself, he +was not at all sure that he cared a straw to have it thus so clearly +proved that Anne was what she had seemed to be. Had he not known it all +along? His heart sang with the thought that he had been ready to marry +her, no matter what her position in the world. + +And now he wondered how many hours it would be before he should have his +chance to see her alone, if for but five minutes. Well, at least he +could look at her. And that, as he descended the stairs with the +others, he found well worth doing. Anne and Gardner Coolidge were +meeting them at the foot, and the young hostess had changed her white +outing garb for a most enchanting other white, which showed her round +arms through soft net and lace and made her yet a new type of girl in +King's thought of her. + +She had a perfectly straightforward way of meeting his eyes, though her +own were bewildering even so, without any coquetry in her use of them. +She was not blushing and shy, she was self-possessed and radiant. King +could understand, as he looked at her now, how she had felt over that +affair of the tragedy suddenly precipitated into her life, and what +strength of character it must have taken to send her out from this +secluded and perfect home into a rough world, that she might find out +for herself "how such things could happen." And as he watched her, +playing hostess in this home of hers, looking after everybody's comfort +with that ease and charm which proclaims a lifetime of previous training +and custom, his heart grew fuller and fuller of pride and love and +longing. + +The dinner hour passed, a merry hour at a dignified table, served by the +old butler who made a rite of his service, his face never relaxing +though the laughter rang never so contagiously. Burns and Coolidge were +the life of the company, the latter seeming a different man from the +one who had come to consult his old chum as to the trouble in his life. +Mrs. Coolidge, quiet and very attractive in her reserved, fair beauty, +made an interesting foil to Ellen Burns, and the two, beside the rather +fussy aunt and cousins, seemed to belong together. + +"Anne, we must show Doctor Burns our plans for the cottage," Coolidge +said to his sister as they left the table. He turned to Ellen, walking +beside her. "She's almost persuaded us to build on a corner of her own +estate--at least a summer place, for a starter. You know Red prescribed +for us a cottage, and we haven't yet carried out his prescription But +this sister of mine, since she met him, has acquired the idea that any +prescription of his simply has to be filled, and she won't let Alicia +and me alone till we've done this thing. Shall we all walk along down +there? There'll be just about time before dark for you to see the site, +and the plans shall come later." + +The whole party trooped down the steps into the garden. King was a +clever engineer, but he could not do any engineering which seemed to +count in this affair. Never seeming to avoid him, Anne was never where +he could get three words alone with her. She devoted herself to his +mother, to Ellen, or to Burns himself, and none of these people gave him +any help. Not that he wanted them to. He bided his time, and meanwhile +he took some pleasure in showing his lady that he, too, could play his +part until it should suit her to give him his chance. + +But when, as the evening wore on, it began to look as if she were +deliberately trying to prevent any interview whatever, he grew unhappy. +And at last, the party having returned to the house and gathered in a +delightful old drawing-room, he took his fate in his hands. At a moment +when Anne stood beside Red Pepper looking over some photographs lying on +the grand piano, he came up behind them. + +"Miss Coolidge," he said, "I wonder if you would show me that lilac +hedge by moonlight." + +"I'm afraid there isn't any moon," she answered with a merry, +straightforward look. "It will be as dark as a pocket down by that +hedge, Mr. King. But I'll gladly show it to you to-morrow morning--as +early as you like. I'm a very early riser." + +"As early as six o'clock?" he asked eagerly. + +She nodded. "As early as that. It is a perfect time on a May morning." + +"And you won't go anywhere now?" + +"How can I?" she parried, smiling. "These are my guests." + +Burns glanced at his friend, his hazel eyes full of suppressed laughter. +"Better be contented with that, old fellow. That row of lilacs will be +very nice at six o'clock to-morrow morning. Mayn't I come, too, Miss +Coolidge?" + +"Of course you may." Her sparkling glance met his. Evidently they were +very good friends, and understood each other. + +"If he does," said King, in a sort of growl, "he'll have something to +settle with me." + +He went to bed in a peculiar frame of mind. Why had she wanted to waste +all these hours when at nine in the morning the party was to leave for +its return trip? Well, he supposed morning would come sometime, though +it seemed, at midnight, a long way off. + +"Want me to call you at five-thirty, Jord?" Burns had inquired of him at +parting. + +"No, thanks," he had replied. "I'll not miss it." + +"A fellow might lie awake so long thinking about it that he'd go off +into a sound sleep just before daylight, and sleep right through his +early morning appointment," urged his loyal friend. "Better let me--" + +"Oh, you go on to bed!" requested King irritably. + +"No gratitude to one who has brought all this to pass, eh?" + +"Heaps of it. But this evening has been rather a facer." + +"Not at all. There were a dozen times when you might have rushed in and +got a little quiet place all to yourself, with only the stars looking +on. Plenty of openings." + +"I didn't see 'em. You were always in the way." + +"I was! Well, I like that. Had to be ordinarily attentive to my hostess, +hadn't I? It wasn't for me to take shy little boys by the hand and lead +them up to the little girls they fancied." + +"I don't want to be led up by the hand, thank you. Good-night!" + + * * * * * + +King was up at daybreak, which in May comes reasonably early. Stealing +down through the quiet house, the windows of which seemed to be all wide +open to the morning air, he came out upon the porch and took the path to +the lilac hedge. Arrived there at only twenty minutes before the +appointed hour, he had so long a wait that he began to grow both +impatient and chagrined. At quarter-past six he was feeling very much +like stalking back to the house and retiring to his room, when the low +sound of a motor arrested him, and he wheeled, to discover a long, low, +gray car, of a type with which he was not familiar, sailing gracefully +around the long curve of the driveway toward him. A trim figure in gray, +with a small gray velvet hat pulled close over auburn hair, was at the +wheel, and a vivid face was smiling at him. But the air of the driver +as she drew up beside him was not at all sentimental, rather it was +businesslike. + +"I'm awfully sorry to be late," she said, "but I couldn't possibly help +it. I got up at four, to make a call I had to make and be back, but I +was detained. And even now I must be off again, without any lingering by +lilac hedges. What shall we do about it?" + +"I'll go with you." And King stepped into the car. + +"With or without an invitation?" Her eyes were laughing, though her lips +had sobered. + +"With or without. And you know you came back for me." + +"I came back for a basket of things I must get from the house. Also, of +course, to explain my detention." + +"Out selling books, I suppose?" he questioned, not caring much what he +said, now that he had her to himself. "You must make a great impression +as a book agent. If only you had tried that way in our town. And I--I +took you in my car under the pleasant impression that I was giving you a +treat--on that first trip, you know. By the second trip I had acquired a +sneaking suspicion that motoring wasn't such a novelty to you as I had +at first supposed." + +They had flown around the remaining curves and were at a rear door of +the house. Anne jumped out, was gone for ten minutes or so, and emerged +with a servant following with a great hamper. This was bestowed at +King's feet, and the car was off again, Anne driving with the ease of a +veteran. + +"You see," she explained, "late last evening I had news of the serious +illness of a girl friend of mine. I went to see her, but after I came +back I couldn't be easy about her, and so I got up quite early this +morning and went again. She was much better, precisely as Doctor Burns +had assured me she would be. By and by perhaps I shall learn to trust +him as absolutely as all the rest of you do." + +"Burns! You don't mean to say you had him out to see a case last +night--after--" + +She nodded, and her profile, under the snug gray hat, was a little like +that of a handsome and somewhat mischievous but strong-willed boy. "Was +that so dreadful of me--as a hostess? I admit that a doctor ought to be +allowed to rest when he is away from home, but I knew that he was just +back from a long voyage and was feeling fit as a fiddle, as he himself +said. And there is really no very competent man in the town where my +friend is ill; it was such a wonderful chance for her to have great +skill at her service. And such skill! Oh, how he went to work for her! +It made one feel at once that something was being done, where before +people had merely tried to do things." + +King was making rapid calculation. At the end of it, "Would you mind +telling me whether you have had any sleep at all?" he begged. + +She turned her face toward him for an instant. "Do I look so haggard and +wan?" she queried with a quick glance. "Yes, I had a good two hours. And +I'm so happy now to know that Estelle is sleeping quietly that it's much +better than to have slept myself." + +"Do you do this sort of thing often?" + +"Not just such spectacular night work, but I do try to see that a little +is done to look after a few people who have had a terribly hard time of +it. But this is all--or mostly--since I came back from my year away. I +learned just a few things during that year, you know." + +"Your cousin--do you mind?--gave me just a bit of an idea why you went," +he ventured. + +"Oh, Leila Stockton." Her lips took on an amused curl. "Of course Leila +would. She--chatters. But she's a dear girl; it's just that she can't +easily get a new point of view." + +He pressed her with his questions, for his discernment told him that it +was of no use, while they were flying along the road at this pace, with +a hamper at their feet--or at his feet, crowding him rather +uncomfortably and forcing him to sit with cramped legs--no use for him +to talk of the subject uppermost in his anxious mind. So he got from +her, as well as he could, the story of the year, and presently had her +telling him eagerly of the people she had met, and the progress she had +made in the study of human beings. It was really an engrossing tale, +quietly as she told it, and many as were the details he saw that she +kept back. + +"I found out one thing very early," she said. "I knew that I could never +come back and live as I had lived before, with no thought of any one but +myself." + +"I don't believe you had ever done that." + +"I had--I had, if ever any one did. I went away to school in Paris for +two years; I wouldn't go to college--how I wish I had! I was the gayest, +most thoughtless girl you ever knew until--the thing happened that sent +my world spinning upside down. Why, Mr. King, I was so selfish and so +thoughtless that I could turn that poor girl away from my door with a +careless denial, and never see that she was desperate--that it wanted +only one more such turning away to make her do the thing she did." + +He saw her press her lips together, her eyes fixed on the road ahead, +and he saw the beautiful brows contract, as if the memory still were +too keen for her to bear calmly. + +"You have certainly atoned a hundred times over," he said gently, "for +any carelessness in the past. How could you know how she was feeling? +And she was insane, Miss Stockton said." + +"No more insane than I am now--simply desperate with weariness and +failure. And I should have seen; I did see. I just--didn't care. I was +busy trying on a box of new frocks from a French dressmaker, frocks of +silk and lace--of silk and lace, Jordan King, while she hadn't clothes +enough to keep her warm! And I couldn't spare the time to look at the +girl's book! Well, I learned what it was to have people turn me from +their doors--I, with plenty of money at my command, no matter how I +elected to dress cheaply and go to cheap boarding places, and--insist on +cheap beds at hospitals." Her tone was full of scorn. "After all, did I +ever really suffer anything of what she suffered? Never, for always I +knew that at any minute I could turn from a poor girl into a rich one, +throw my book in the faces of those who refused to buy it, and telephone +my anxious family. They did come on and try to get me away--once. I went +with them--for the day. It was the day you met me. And always there was +the interest of the adventure. It was an adventure, you know, a big +one." + +"I should say it was. And when you were at the hospital--" + +"Accepting expensive rooms and free medical attendance--oh, wasn't I a +fraud? How I felt it I can never tell you. But I could--and did--send +back Doctor Burns a draft in part payment, though I thought he would +never imagine where it came from. He did, though. What do you suppose he +told me last night when we were driving home?--this morning it was, of +course." + +"I can't guess," King admitted, suffering a distinct and poignant pang +of jealousy at thought of Red Pepper Burns driving through the night +with this girl, on an errand of mercy though it had been. + +"He told me," she said slowly, "that he learned all about me while I was +in the hospital. One night, when I was at the worst, he sent Miss Arden +out for a rest and sat beside me himself. And in my foolish, delirious +wanderings I gave him the whole story, or enough of it so that he pieced +out the rest. And he never told a soul, not even his wife; wasn't that +wonderful of him? And treated me exactly the same as if he didn't +practically know I wasn't what I seemed. You see, I wasn't far enough +away from that poor girl's suicide, when I was so ill last year, but +that it was always in my mind. Even yet I dream of it at times." + +They were entering a large manufacturing town, the streets in the early +morning full of factory operatives on their way to work, dinner-pails in +hands and shawls over heads. Anne drove carefully, often throwing a +smile at a group of children or slowing down more than the law decreed +to avoid making some weary-faced woman hurry. And when at length she +drew up before a dingy brick tenement house, of a type the most +unpromising, King discovered that her "friend" was one of these very +people. + +He carried the hamper up two flights of ramshackle stairs and set it +inside the door she indicated. Then he unwillingly withdrew to the car, +where he sat waiting--and wondering. It was not long he had to wait, in +point of time, but his impatience was growing upon him. All this was +very well, and threw interesting lights upon a girl's character, but--it +would be nine o'clock all too soon. To be sure, though Red Pepper bore +him away, he knew the road back--he could come back as soon as he +pleased, with nobody to set hours of departure for him. But he did not +mean to go away this first time without the thing he wanted, if it was +to be his. + +She came running downstairs, face aglow with relief and pleasure, and +sent the car smoothly away. And now it was that King discovered how a +girl may fence and parry, so that a man may not successfully introduce +the subject he is burning to speak of, without riding roughshod over her +objection. And presently he gave it up, biding his time. He sat silent +while she talked, and then finally, when she too grew silent, he let the +minutes slip by without another word. Thus it was that they drew up at +the house, still speechless concerning the great issue between them. + +It was only a little past seven; nobody was in sight except a maid +servant, who slipped discreetly away. King took one look into a small +room at the right of the hall, a sort of small den or office it seemed +to be. Then he turned to Anne and put out his hand. "Will you come in +here, please?" he requested. + +She looked at him for a moment without giving him her hand, then +preceded him into the room. There was a heavy curtain of dull blue silk +hanging by the door frame, and King noiselessly drew this across. Then +he turned and confronted the girl. She had drawn off her motoring +gloves, but made no motion to remove either the rough gray coat in which +she had been driving or the small gray velvet hat drawn smoothly down +over her curls with a clever air of its own. Altogether she looked not +in the least like a hostess, but very like a traveller who has only +paused for a brief stop on a journey to be immediately continued. + +He stood there watching her for a minute, himself a challenging figure +with his dark, bright face, his fine young height, his air of--quite +suddenly--commanding the situation. And he was between the girl and the +door. The two pairs of eyes looked straight into each other. + +"Well?" he said. + +"Well?" said Anne Linton Coolidge in return. + +"Did you expect me to wait any longer?" + +"I was afraid you might come and go--and never say so much as 'Well?'" +said she. + +This was more than mortal man could bear--and there was no more waiting +done by anybody. When Jordan King had--temporarily--done satisfying the +hunger of his lips and arms, he spoke again, looking down searchingly at +a face into which he had brought plenty of splendid colour. + +"If I had found you in that poor place I thought I should, it would have +been just the same," he said. + +"I really believe it would," admitted Anne. + + * * * * * + +Half an hour afterward, emerging from the small room which had held such +a big experience, the pair discovered Red Pepper Burns just descending +the stairway. He scrutinized their faces sharply, then advanced upon +them. They met him halfway. He gravely took Anne's hand and set his +fingers on her pulse. + +"Too rapid," he said with a shake of the head. "Altogether too rapid. +You have been undergoing much excitement--and so early in the morning, +too. As your physician I must caution you against such untimely hours." + +He felt of King's wrist, and again he shook his head. "Worse and worse," +he announced. "Not only rapid, but bounding. The heart is plainly +overworked. These cases are contagious. One acts upon the other--no +doubt of it--no doubt at all. I would suggest--" + +He found both his arms grasped by Jordan King's strong hands, and he +allowed himself to be held tightly by that happy young man. "Give us +your best wishes!" demanded his captor. + +"Why, you've had those from the first. I saw this coming before either +of you," Burns replied. + +"Not before I did," asserted King. + +"Not before I did," declared Anne. + +Then the two looked at each other, and Burns, smiling at them, his hazel +eyes very bright, requested to be restored the use of his arms. This +being conceded, he laid those arms about the shoulders before him and +drew the two young people close within them. + +"You two are the most satisfactory and the dearest patients I've ever +had," declared Red Pepper Burns. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RED PEPPER'S PATIENTS*** + + +******* This file should be named 16115-8.txt or 16115-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/6/1/1/16115 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: +https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/16115-8.zip b/16115-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..914f5c9 --- /dev/null +++ b/16115-8.zip diff --git a/16115-h.zip b/16115-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f08c242 --- /dev/null +++ b/16115-h.zip diff --git a/16115-h/16115-h.htm b/16115-h/16115-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d1a9c83 --- /dev/null +++ b/16115-h/16115-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7580 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Red Pepper's Patients, by Grace S. Richmond</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + hr.fifty { width: 50%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;} /* page numbers */ + .sidenote {width: 20%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em; margin-left: 1em; + float: right; clear: right; margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; background: #eeeeee; border: dashed 1px;} + + .bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + .bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + .bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + .br {border-right: solid 2px;} + .bbox {border: solid 2px;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .u {text-decoration: underline;} + + .caption {font-weight: bold;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .figleft {float: left; clear: left; margin-left: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: + 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .figright {float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em;} + .right {margin-left:10%; margin-right:20%; text-align: right;} + hr.full { width: 100%; } + pre {font-size: 8pt;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Red Pepper's Patients, by Grace S. Richmond</h1> +<pre> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Red Pepper's Patients</p> +<p> With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular</p> +<p>Author: Grace S. Richmond</p> +<p>Release Date: June 23, 2005 [eBook #16115]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RED PEPPER'S PATIENTS***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Irma Spehar,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (https://www.pgdp.net)</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p><a name="Page_-4" id="Page_-4"></a></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/gs01.jpg" width="400" height="681" alt=""Red Pepper" Burns, M.D." title=""Red Pepper" Burns, M.D." /> +<span class="caption">"Red Pepper" Burns, M.D.</span> +<br /></div> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h1><a name="Page_-3" id="Page_-3"></a>RED PEPPER'S PATIENTS</h1> + +<h3>WITH AN ACCOUNT OF ANNE LINTON'S CASE IN PARTICULAR</h3> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>GRACE S. RICHMOND</h2> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 250px;"> +<img src="images/frontispiece.jpg" width="250" height="222" alt="FRONTISPIECE" title="" /> +<span class="caption">FRONTISPIECE</span> +</div> + +<p class='center'><span class="smcap">Garden City New York</span></p> + +<p class='center'><big>DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY</big></p> + +<p class='center'>1918</p> + +<p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a><a name="Page_-1" id="Page_-1"></a>CONTENTS</h2> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'><b>CHAPTER</b></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>I.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">An Intelligent Prescription</span></td><td align='left'><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>II.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Little Hungary</span></td><td align='left'><a href="#Page_26">26</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>III.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Anne Linton's Temperature</span></td><td align='left'><a href="#Page_54">54</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>IV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Two Red Heads</span></td><td align='left'><a href="#Page_65">65</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>V.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Susquehanna</span></td><td align='left'><a href="#Page_81">81</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>VI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Heavy Local Mails</span></td><td align='left'><a href="#Page_102">102</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>VII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">White Lilacs</span></td><td align='left'><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>VIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Expert Diagnosis</span></td><td align='left'><a href="#Page_133">133</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>IX.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Jordan Is a Man</span></td><td align='left'><a href="#Page_150">150</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>X.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Surgical Firing Line</span></td><td align='left'><a href="#Page_162">162</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>XI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Only Safe Place</span></td><td align='left'><a href="#Page_175">175</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>XII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Truth About Susquehanna</span></td><td align='left'><a href="#Page_190">190</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>XIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Red Headed Again</span></td><td align='left'><a href="#Page_213">213</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>XIV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Strange Day</span></td><td align='left'><a href="#Page_222">222</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>XV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Cleared Decks</span></td><td align='left'><a href="#Page_234">234</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>XVI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">White Lilacs Again</span></td><td align='left'><a href="#Page_249">249</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>XVII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Red's Dearest Patients</span></td><td align='left'><a href="#Page_264">264</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="RED_PEPPERS_PATIENTS" id="RED_PEPPERS_PATIENTS"></a><a name="Page_0" id="Page_0"></a><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a>RED PEPPER'S PATIENTS</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2"></a><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + + +<h3>AN INTELLIGENT PRESCRIPTION</h3> + +<p>The man in the silk-lined, London-made overcoat, holding his hat firmly +on his head lest the January wind send its expensive perfection into the +gutter, paused to ask his way of the man with no overcoat, his hands +shoved into his ragged pockets, his shapeless headgear crowded down over +his eyes, red and bleary with the piercing wind.</p> + +<p>"Burns?" repeated the second man to the question of the first. "Doc +Burns? Sure! Next house beyond the corner—the brick one." He turned to +point. "Tell it by the rigs hitched. It's his office hours. You'll do +some waitin', tell ye that."</p> + +<p>The questioner smiled—a slightly superior smile. "Thank you," he said, +and passed on. He arrived at the corner and paused briefly, considering +the row of vehicles in front of the old, low-lying brick house with its +comfortable, white-pillared porches.<a name="Page_4" id="Page_4"></a> The row was indeed a formidable +one and suggested many waiting people within the house. But after an +instant's hesitation he turned up the gravel path toward the wing of the +house upon whose door could be seen the lettering of an inconspicuous +sign. As he came near he made out that the sign read "R.P. Burns, M.D.," +and that the table of office hours below set forth that the present hour +was one of those designated.</p> + +<p>"I'll get a line on your practice, Red," said the stranger to himself, +and laid hand upon the doorbell. "Incidentally, perhaps, I'll get a line +on why you stick to a small suburban town like this when you might be in +the thick of things. A fellow whom I've twice met in Vienna, too. I +can't understand it."</p> + +<p>A fair-haired young woman in a white uniform and cap admitted the +newcomer and pointed him to the one chair left unoccupied in the large +and crowded waiting-room. It was a pleasant room, in a well-worn sort of +way, and the blazing wood fire in a sturdy fireplace, the rows of +dull-toned books cramming a solid phalanx of bookcases, and a number of +interesting old prints on the walls gave it, as the stranger, lifting +critical eyes, was obliged to admit to himself, a curious air of dignity +in spite of the mingled atmosphere of drugs and patients which assailed +his fastidious nostrils.<a name="Page_5" id="Page_5"></a> As for the patients themselves, since they +were all about him, he could hardly do less than observe them, although +he helped himself to a late magazine from a well-filled table at his +side and mechanically turned its pages.</p> + +<p>The first to claim his attention was a little girl at his elbow. She +could hardly fail to catch his eye, she was so conspicuous with +bandages. One eye, one cheek, the whole of her neck, and both her hands +were swathed in white, but the other cheek was rosy, and the uncovered +eye twinkled bravely as she smiled at the stranger. "I was burned," she +said proudly.</p> + +<p>"I see," returned the stranger, speaking very low, for he was conscious +that the entire roomful of people was listening. "And you are getting +better?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes!" exulted the child. "Doctor's making me have new skin. He gets +me more new skin every day. I didn't have any at all. It was all burned +off."</p> + +<p>"That's very good of him," murmured the stranger.</p> + +<p>"He's awful good," said the child, "when he isn't cross. He isn't ever +cross to me, Doctor isn't."</p> + +<p>There was a general murmur of amusement in the room, and another child, +not far away, laughed aloud. The stranger furtively scrutinized the +<a name="Page_6" id="Page_6"></a>other patients one by one, lifting apparently casual glances from +behind his magazine. Several, presumably the owners of the vehicles +outside, were of the typical village type, but there were others more +sophisticated, and several who were palpably persons of wealth. One late +comer was admitted who left a luxuriously appointed motor across the +street, and brought in with her an atmosphere of costly furs and violets +and fresh air.</p> + +<p>"Certainly a mixed crowd," said the stranger to himself behind his +magazine; "but not so different, after all, from most doctors' +waiting-room crowds. I might send in a card, but, if I remember Red, it +wouldn't get me anything—and this is rather interesting anyhow. I'll +wait."</p> + +<p>He waited, for he wished the waiting room to be clear when he should +approach that busy consulting room beyond. Meanwhile, people came and +went. The door into the inner room would swing open, a patient would +emerge, a curt but pleasant "Good-bye" in a deep voice following him or +her out, and the fair-haired nurse, who sat at a desk near the door or +came out of the consulting room with the patient, would summon the next. +The lady of the furs and violets sent in her card, but, as the stranger +had anticipated in his own case, it procured her no more than an +assurance from the nurse that Doctor Burns would see her in due course. +Since <a name="Page_7" id="Page_7"></a>he wanted the coast clear the stranger, when at last his turn +arrived, politely waived his rights, sent the furs and violets in before +him, and sat alone with the nurse in the cleared waiting room.</p> + +<p>A comparatively short period of time elapsed before the consulting-room +door opened once more. But it closed again—almost—and a few words +reached the outer room.</p> + +<p>"Oh, but you're hard—hard, Doctor Burns! I simply can't do it," said a +plaintive voice.</p> + +<p>"Then don't expect me to accomplish anything. It's up to +you—absolutely," replied a brusque voice, which then softened slightly +as it added: "Cheer up. You can, you know. Good-bye."</p> + +<p>The patient came out, her lips set, her eyes lowered, and left the +office as if she wanted nothing so much as to get away. The nurse rose +and began to say that Doctor Burns would now see his one remaining +caller, but at that moment Doctor Burns himself appeared in the doorway, +glanced at the stranger, who had risen, smiling—and the need for an +intermediary between physician and patient vanished before the onslaught +of the physician himself.</p> + +<p>"My word! Gardner Coolidge! Well, well—if this isn't the greatest thing +on earth. My dear fellow!"</p> + +<p>The stranger, no longer a stranger, with his hand <a name="Page_8" id="Page_8"></a>being wrung like +that, with his eyes being looked into by a pair of glowing hazel eyes +beneath a heavy thatch of well-remembered coppery hair, returned this +demonstration of affection with equal fervour.</p> + +<p>"I've been sitting in your stuffy waiting room, Red, till the entire +population of this town should tell you its aches, just for the pleasure +of seeing you with the professional manner off."</p> + +<p>Burns threw back his head and laughed, with a gesture as of flinging +something aside. "It's off then, Cooly—if I have one. I didn't know I +had. How are you? Man, but it's good to see you! Come along out of this +into a place that's not stuffy. Where's your bag? You didn't leave it +anywhere?"</p> + +<p>"I can't stay, Red—really I can't. Not this time. I must go to-night. +And I came to consult you professionally—so let's get that over first."</p> + +<p>"Of course. Just let me speak a word to the authorities. You'll at least +be here for dinner? Step into the next room, Cooly. On your way let me +present you to my assistant, Miss Mathewson, whom I couldn't do without. +Mr. Coolidge, Miss Mathewson."</p> + +<p>Gardner Coolidge bowed to the office nurse, whom he had already +classified as a very attractively superior person and well worth a good +salary; then went on into the consulting room, where an <a name="Page_9" id="Page_9"></a>open window had +freshened the small place beyond any possibility of its being called +stuffy. As he closed the window with a shiver and looked about him, +glancing into the white-tiled surgery beyond; he recognized the fact +that, though he might be in the workshop of a village practitioner, it +was a workshop which did not lack the tools of the workman thoroughly +abreast of the times.</p> + +<p>Burns came back, his face bright with pleasure in the unexpected +appearance of his friend. He stood looking across the small room at +Coolidge, as if he could get a better view of the whole man at a little +distance. The two men were a decided contrast to each other. Redfield +Pepper Burns, known to all his intimates, and to many more who would not +have ventured to call him by that title, as "Red Pepper Burns," on +account of the combination of red head, quick temper, and wit which were +his most distinguishing characteristics of body and mind, was a stalwart +fellow whose weight was effectually kept down by his activity. His white +linen office jacket was filled by powerful shoulders, and the perfectly +kept hands of the surgeon gave evidence, as such hands do, of their +delicacy of touch, in the very way in which Burns closed the door behind +him.</p> + +<p>Gardner Coolidge was of a different type altogether. As tall as Burns, +he looked taller because <a name="Page_10" id="Page_10"></a>of his slender figure and the distinctive +outlines of his careful dress. His face was dark and rather thin, +showing sensitive lines about the eyes and mouth, and a tendency to +melancholy in the eyes themselves, even when lighted by a smile, as now. +He was manifestly the man of worldly experience, with fastidious tastes, +and presumably one who did not accept the rest of mankind as comrades +until proved and chosen.</p> + +<p>"So it's my services you want?" questioned Burns. "If that's the case, +then it's here you sit."</p> + +<p>"Face to the light, of course," objected Coolidge with a grimace. "I +wonder if you doctors know what a moral advantage as well as a physical +one that gives you."</p> + +<p>"Of course. The moral advantage is the one we need most. Anybody can see +when a skin is jaundiced; but only by virtue of that moral standpoint +can we detect the soul out of order. And that's the matter with you, +Cooly."</p> + +<p>"What!" Coolidge looked startled. "I knew you were a man who jumped to +conclusions in the old days—"</p> + +<p>"And acted on them, too," admitted Burns. "I should say I did. And got +myself into many a scrape thereby, of course. Well, I jump to +conclusions now, in just the same way, only perhaps with a bit more +understanding of the ground I <a name="Page_11" id="Page_11"></a>jump on. However, tell me your symptoms +in orthodox style, please, then we'll have them out of the way."</p> + +<p>Coolidge related them somewhat reluctantly because, as he went on, he +was conscious that they did not appear to be of as great importance as +this visit to a physician seemed to indicate he thought them. The most +impressive was the fact that he was unable to get a thoroughly good +night's sleep except when physically exhausted, which in his present +manner of life he seldom was. When he had finished and looked around—he +had been gazing out of the window—he found himself, as he had known he +should, under the intent scrutiny of the eyes he was facing.</p> + +<p>"What did the last man give you for this insomnia?" was the abrupt +question.</p> + +<p>"How do you know I have been to a succession of men?" demanded Coolidge +with a touch of evident irritation.</p> + +<p>"Because you come to me. We don't look up old friends in the profession +until the strangers fail us," was the quick reply.</p> + +<p>"More hasty conclusions. Still, I'll have to admit that I let our family +physician look me over, and that he suggested my seeing a nerve +man—Allbright. He has rather a name, I believe?"</p> + +<p>"Sure thing. What did he recommend?"</p> + +<p><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12"></a>"A long sea voyage. I took it—having nothing else to do—and slept a +bit better while I was away. The minute I got back it was the old +story."</p> + +<p>"Nothing on your mind, I suppose?" suggested Burns.</p> + +<p>"I supposed you'd ask me that stock question. Why shouldn't there be +something on my mind? Is there anybody whose mind is free from a weight +of some sort?" demanded Gardner Coolidge. His thin face flushed a +little.</p> + +<p>"Nobody," admitted Burns promptly. "The question is whether the weight +on yours is one that's got to stay there or whether you may be rid of +it. Would you care to tell me anything about it? I'm a pretty old +friend, you know."</p> + +<p>Coolidge was silent for a full minute, then he spoke with evident +reluctance: "It won't do a particle of good to tell, but I suppose, if I +consult you, you have a right to know the facts. My wife—has gone back +to her father."</p> + +<p>"On a visit?" Burns inquired.</p> + +<p>Coolidge stared at him. "That's like you, Red," he said, irritation in +his voice again. "What's the use of being brutal?"</p> + +<p>"Has she been gone long enough for people to think it's anything more +than a visit?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose not. She's been gone two months. Her home is in California."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13"></a>"Then she can be gone three without anybody's thinking trouble. By the +end of that third month you can bring her home," said Burns comfortably. +He leaned back in his swivel-chair, and stared hard at the ceiling.</p> + +<p>Coolidge made an exclamation of displeasure and got to his feet. "If you +don't care to take me seriously—" he began.</p> + +<p>"I don't take any man seriously who I know cared as much for his wife +when he married her as you did for Miss Carrington—and whose wife was +as much in love with him as she was with you—when he comes to me and +talks about her having gone on a visit to her father. Visits are good +things; they make people appreciate each other."</p> + +<p>"You don't—or won't—understand." Coolidge evidently strove hard to +keep himself quiet. "We have come to a definite understanding that we +can't—get on together. She's not coming back. And I don't want her to."</p> + +<p>Burns lowered his gaze from the ceiling to his friend's face, and the +glance he now gave him was piercing. "Say that last again," he demanded.</p> + +<p>"I have some pride," replied the other haughtily, but his eyes would not +meet Burns's.</p> + +<p>"So I see. Pride is a good thing. So is love. Tell me you don't love her +and I'll—No, don't <a name="Page_14" id="Page_14"></a>tell me that. I don't want to hear you perjure +yourself. And I shouldn't believe you. You may as well own up"—his +voice was gentle now—"that you're suffering—and not only with hurt +pride." There was silence for a little. Then Burns began again, in a +very low and quiet tone: "Have you anything against her, Cooly?"</p> + +<p>The man before him, who was still standing, turned upon him. "How can +you ask me such a question?" he said fiercely.</p> + +<p>"It's a question that has to be asked, just to get it out of the way. +Has she anything against you?"</p> + +<p>"For heaven's sake—no! You know us both."</p> + +<p>"I thought I did. Diagnosis, you know, is a series of eliminations. And +now I can eliminate pretty nearly everything from this case except a +certain phrase you used a few minutes ago. I'm inclined to think it's +the cause of the trouble." Coolidge looked his inquiry. "'<i>Having +nothing else to do.</i>'"</p> + +<p>Coolidge shook his head. "You're mistaken there. I have plenty to do."</p> + +<p>"But nothing you couldn't be spared from—unless things have changed +since the days when we all envied you. You're still writing your name on +the backs of dividend drafts, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"Red, you are something of a brute," said<a name="Page_15" id="Page_15"></a> Coolidge, biting his lip. But +he had taken the chair again.</p> + +<p>"I know," admitted Red Pepper Burns. "I don't really mean to be, but the +only way I can find out the things I need to know is to ask straight +questions. I never could stand circumlocution. If you want that, Cooly; +if you want what are called 'tactful' methods, you'll have to go to some +other man. What I mean by asking you that one is to prove to you that +though you may have something to do, you have no job to work at. As it +happens you haven't even what most other rich men have, the trouble of +looking after your income—and as long as your father lives you won't +have it. I understand that; he won't let you. But there's a man with a +job—your father. And he likes it so well he won't share it with you. It +isn't the money he values, it's the job. And collecting books or curios +or coins can never be made to take the place of good, downright hard +work."</p> + +<p>"That may be all true," acknowledged Coolidge, "but it has nothing to do +with my present trouble. My leisure was not what—" He paused, as if he +could not bear to discuss the subject of his marital unhappiness.</p> + +<p>The telephone bell in the outer office rang sharply. An instant later +Miss Mathewson knocked, and gave a message to Burns. He read <a name="Page_16" id="Page_16"></a>it, +nodded, said "Right away," and turned back to his friend.</p> + +<p>"I have to leave you for a bit," he said. "Come in and meet my wife and +one of the kiddies. The other's away just now. I'll be back in time for +dinner. Meanwhile, we'll let the finish of this talk wait over for an +hour or two. I want to think about it."</p> + +<p>He exchanged his white linen office-jacket for a street coat, splashing +about with soap and water just out of sight for a little while before he +did so, and reappeared looking as if he had washed away the fatigue of +his afternoon's work with the physical process. He led Gardner Coolidge +out of the offices into a wide separating hall, and the moment the door +closed behind him the visitor felt as if he had entered a different +world.</p> + +<p>Could this part of the house, he thought, as Burns ushered him into the +living room on the other side of the hall and left him there while he +went to seek his wife, possibly be contained within the old brick walls +of the exterior? He had not dreamed of finding such refinement of beauty +and charm in connection with the office of the village doctor. In half a +dozen glances to right and left Gardner Coolidge, experienced in +appraising the belongings of the rich and travelled of superior taste +and breeding, admitted to himself that the genius of the place must be +such a woman as he <a name="Page_17" id="Page_17"></a>would not have imagined Redfield Pepper Burns able +to marry.</p> + +<p>He had not long to wait for the confirmation of his insight. Burns +shortly returned, a two-year-old boy on his shoulder, his wife +following, drawn along by the child's hand. Coolidge looked, and liked +that which he saw. And he understood, with one glance into the dark eyes +which met his, one look at the firm sweetness of the lovely mouth, that +the heart of the husband must safely trust in this woman.</p> + +<p>Burns went away at once, leaving Coolidge in the company of Ellen, and +the guest, eager though he was for the professional advice he had come +to seek, could not regret the necessity which gave him this hour with a +woman who seemed to him very unusual. Charm she possessed in full +measure, beauty in no less, but neither of these terms nor both together +could wholly describe Ellen Burns. There was something about her which +seemed to glow, so that he soon felt that her presence in the quietly +rich and restful living room completed its furnishing, and that once +having seen her there the place could never be quite at its best without +her.</p> + +<p>Burns came back, and the three went out to dinner. The small boy, a +handsome, auburn-haired, brown-eyed composite of his parents, had <a name="Page_18" id="Page_18"></a>been +sent away, the embraces of both father and mother consoling him for his +banishment to the arms of a coloured mammy. Coolidge thoroughly enjoyed +the simple but appetizing dinner, of the sort he had known he should +have as soon as he had met the mistress of the house. And after it he +was borne away by Burns to the office.</p> + +<p>"I have to go out again at once," the physician announced. "I'm going to +take you with me. I suppose you have a distaste for the sight of +illness, but that doesn't matter seriously. I want you to see this +patient of mine."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, but I don't believe that's necessary," responded Coolidge +with a frown. "If Mrs. Burns is too busy to keep me company I'll sit +here and read while you're out."</p> + +<p>"No, you won't. If you consult a man you're bound to take his +prescriptions. I'm telling you frankly, for you'd see through me if I +pretended to take you out for a walk and then pulled you into a house. +Be a sport, Cooly."</p> + +<p>"Very well," replied the other man, suppressing his irritation. He was +almost, but not quite, wishing he had not yielded to the unexplainable +impulse which had brought him here to see a man who, as he should have +known from past experience in college days, was as sure to be eccentric +in <a name="Page_19" id="Page_19"></a>his methods of practising his profession as he had been in the +conduct of his life as a student.</p> + +<p>The two went out into the winter night together, Coolidge remarking that +the call must be a brief one, for his train would leave in a little more +than an hour.</p> + +<p>"It'll be brief," Burns promised. "It's practically a friendly call +only, for there's nothing more I can do for the patient—except to see +him on his way."</p> + +<p>Coolidge looked more than ever reluctant. "I hope he's not just leaving +the world?"</p> + +<p>"What if he were—would that frighten you? Don't be worried; he'll not +go to-night."</p> + +<p>Something in Burns's tone closed his companion's lips. Coolidge resented +it, and at the same time he felt constrained to let the other have his +way. And after all there proved to be nothing in the sight he presently +found himself witnessing to shock the most delicate sensibilities.</p> + +<p>It was a little house to which Burns conducted his friend and latest +patient; it was a low-ceiled, homely room, warm with lamplight and +comfortable with the accumulations of a lifetime carefully preserved. In +the worn, old, red-cushioned armchair by a glowing stove sat an aged +figure of a certain dignity and attractiveness in spite of the lines and +hues plainly showing serious illness.<a name="Page_20" id="Page_20"></a> The man was a man of education +and experience, as was evident from his first words in response to +Burns's greeting.</p> + +<p>"It was kind of you to come again to-night, Doctor. I suspect you know +how it shortens the nights to have this visit from you in the evening."</p> + +<p>"Of course I know," Burns responded, his hand resting gently on the +frail shoulder, his voice as tender as that of a son's to a father whom +he knows he is not long to see.</p> + +<p>There was a woman in the room, an old woman with a pathetic face and +eyes like a mourning dog's as they rested on her husband. But her voice +was cheerful and full of quiet courage as she answered Burns's +questions. The pair received Gardner Coolidge as simply as if they were +accustomed to meet strangers every day, spoke with him a little, and +showed him the courtesy of genuine interest when he tried to entertain +them with a brief account of an incident which had happened on his train +that day. Altogether, there was nothing about the visit which he could +have characterized as painful from the point of view of the layman who +accompanies the physician to a room where it is clear that the great +transition is soon to take place. And yet there was everything about it +to make it painful—acutely painful—to any man whose discernment was +naturally as keen as Coolidge's.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21"></a>That the parting so near at hand was to be one between lovers of long +standing could be read in every word and glance the two gave each other. +That they were making the most of these last days was equally apparent, +though not a word was said to suggest it. And that the man who was +conducting them through the fast-diminishing time was dear to them as a +son could have been read by the very blind.</p> + +<p>"It's so good of you—so good of you, Doctor," they said again as Burns +rose to go, and when he responded: "It's good to myself I am, my dears, +when I come to look at you," the smiles they gave him and each other +were very eloquent.</p> + +<p>Outside there was silence between the two men for a little as they +walked briskly along, then Coolidge said reluctantly: "Of course I +should have a heart of stone if I were not touched by that scene—as you +knew I would be."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I knew," said Burns simply; and Coolidge saw him lift his hand and +dash away a tear. "It gets me, twice a day regularly, just as if I +hadn't seen it before. And when I go back and look at the woman I love I +say to myself that I'll never let anything but the last enemy come +between us if I have to crawl on my knees before her."</p> + +<p>Suddenly Coolidge's throat contracted. His resentment against his friend +was gone. Surely it <a name="Page_22" id="Page_22"></a>was a wise physician who had given him that +heartbreaking little scene to remember when he should be tempted to +harden his heart against the woman he had chosen.</p> + +<p>"Red," he said bye and bye, when the two were alone together for a few +minutes again in the consulting room before he should leave for his +train, "is that all the prescription you're going to give me—a trip to +California? Suppose I'm not successful?"</p> + +<p>Red Pepper Burns smiled, a curious little smile. "You've forgotten what +I told you about the way my old man and woman made a home together,' and +worked at their market gardening together, and read and studied +together—did everything from first to last <i>together</i>. That's the whole +force of the illustration, to my mind, Cooly. It's the standing shoulder +to shoulder to face life that does the thing. Whatever plan you make for +your after life, when you bring Alicia back with you—as you will; I +know it—make it a plan which means partnership—if you have to build a +cottage down on the edge of your estate and live alone there together. +Alone till the children come to keep you company," he added with a +sudden flashing smile.</p> + +<p>Coolidge looked at him and shook his head. His face dropped back into +melancholy. He opened his lips and closed them again. Red Pepper Burns +<a name="Page_23" id="Page_23"></a>opened his own lips—and closed them again. When he did speak it was to +say, more gently than he had yet spoken:</p> + +<p>"Old fellow, life isn't in ruins before you. Make up your mind to that. +You'll sleep again, and laugh again—and cry again, too,—because life +is like that, and you wouldn't want it any other way."</p> + +<p>It was time for Coolidge to go, and the two men went in to permit the +guest to take leave of Mrs. Burns. When they left the house Coolidge +told his friend briefly what he thought of his friend's wife, and Burns +smiled in the darkness as he heard.</p> + +<p>"She affects most people that way," he answered with a proud little ring +in his voice. But he did not go on to talk about her; that would have +been brutal indeed in Coolidge's unhappy circumstances.</p> + +<p>At the train Coolidge turned suddenly to his physician. "You haven't +given me anything for my sleeplessness," he said.</p> + +<p>"Think you must have a prescription?" Burns inquired, getting out his +blank and pen.</p> + +<p>"It will take some time for your advice to work out, if it ever does," +Coolidge said. "Meanwhile, the more good sleep I get the fitter I shall +be for the effort."</p> + +<p>"True enough. All right, you shall have the prescription."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24"></a>Burns wrote rapidly, resting the small leather-bound book on his knee, +his foot on an iron rail of the fence which kept passengers from +crowding. He read over what he had written, his face sober, his eyes +intent. He scrawled a nearly indecipherable "<i>Burns</i>" at the bottom, +folded the slip and handed it to his friend. "Put it away till you're +ready to get it filled," he advised.</p> + +<p>The two shook hands, gripping tightly and looking straight into each +other's eyes.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Red, for it all," said Gardner Coolidge. "There have been +minutes when I felt differently, but I understand you better now. And I +see why your waiting room is full of patients even on a stormy day."</p> + +<p>"No, you don't," denied Red Pepper Burns stoutly. "If you saw me take +their heads off you'd wonder that they ever came again. Plenty of them +don't—and I don't blame them—when I've cooled off."</p> + +<p>Coolidge smiled. "You never lie awake thinking over what you've said or +done, do you, Red? Bygones are bygones with a man like you. You couldn't +do your work if they weren't!"</p> + +<p>A peculiar look leaped into Burns's eyes. "That's what the outsiders +always think," he answered briefly.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it true?"</p> + +<p><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25"></a>"You may as well go on thinking it is—and so may the rest. What's the +use of explaining oneself, or trying to? Better to go on looking +unsympathetic—and suffering, sometimes, more than all one's patients +put together!"</p> + +<p>Coolidge stared at the other man. His face showed suddenly certain grim +lines which Coolidge had not noticed there before—lines written by +endurance, nothing less. But even as the patient looked the physician's +expression changed again. His sternly set lips relaxed into a smile, he +pointed to a motioning porter.</p> + +<p>"Time to be off, Cooly," he said. "Mind you let me know how—you are. +Good luck—the best of it!"</p> + +<hr class="fifty" /> + +<p>In the train Coolidge had no sooner settled himself than he read Burns's +prescription. He had a feeling that it would be different from other +prescriptions, and so it proved:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><span class="smcap">Rx</span> + +<p> Walk five miles every evening.</p> + +<p> Drink no sort of stimulant, except one cup of coffee at + breakfast.</p> + +<p> Begin to make plans for the cottage. Don't let it turn out a + palace.</p> + +<p> Ask the good Lord every night to keep you from being a proud + fool.</p> + +<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Burns.</span></p> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>LITTLE HUNGARY</h3> + + +<p>"Not hungry, Red? After all that cold drive to-day? Would you like to +have Cynthia make you something special, dear?"</p> + +<p>R.P. Burns, M.D., shook his head. "No, thanks." He straightened in his +chair, where he sat at the dinner table opposite his wife. He took up +his knife and fork again and ate valiantly a mouthful or two of the +tempting food upon his plate, then he laid the implements down +decisively. He put his elbow on the table and leaned his head upon his +hand. "I'm just too blamed tired to eat, that's all," he said.</p> + +<p>"Then don't try. I'm quite through, too. Come in the living room and lie +down a little. It's such a stormy night there may be nobody in."</p> + +<p>Ellen slipped her hand through his arm and led the way to the big blue +couch facing the fireplace. He dropped upon it with a sigh of fatigue. +His wife sat down beside him and began to pass her fingers lightly +through his heavy hair, with the <a name="Page_27" id="Page_27"></a>touch which usually soothed him into +slumber if no interruptions came to summon him. But to-night her +ministrations seemed to have little effect, for he lay staring at a +certain picture on the wall with eyes which evidently saw beyond it into +some trying memory.</p> + +<p>"Is the whole world lying heavy on your shoulders to-night, Red?" Ellen +asked presently, knowing that sometimes speech proved a relief from +thought.</p> + +<p>He nodded. "The whole world—millions of tons of it. It's just because +I'm tired. There's no real reason why I should take this day's work +harder than usual—except that I lost the Anderson case this morning. +Poor start for the day, eh?"</p> + +<p>"But you knew you must lose it. Nobody could have saved that poor +creature."</p> + +<p>"I suppose not. But I wanted to save him just the same. You see, he +particularly wanted to live, and he had pinned his whole faith to me. He +wouldn't give it up that I could do the miracle. It hurts to disappoint +a faith like that."</p> + +<p>"Of course it does," she said gently. "But you must try to forget now, +Red, because of to-morrow. There will be people to-morrow who need you +as much as he did."</p> + +<p>"That's just what I'd like to forget," he mur<a name="Page_28" id="Page_28"></a>mured. "Everything's gone +wrong to-day—it'll go worse to-morrow."</p> + +<p>She knew it was small use to try to combat this mood, so unlike his +usual optimism, but frequent enough of occurrence to make her understand +that there is no depression like that of the habitually buoyant, once it +takes firm hold. She left him presently and went to sit by the reading +lamp, looking through current magazines in hope of finding some article +sufficiently attractive to capture his interest, and divert his heavy +thoughts. His eyes rested absently on her as she sat there, a charming, +comradely figure in her simple home dinner attire, with the light on her +dark hair and the exquisite curve of her cheek.</p> + +<p>It was a fireside scene of alluring comfort, the two central figures of +such opposite characteristics, yet so congenial. The night outside was +very cold, the wind blowing stormily in great gusts which now and then +howled down the chimney, making the warmth and cheer within all the more +appealing.</p> + +<p>Suddenly Ellen, hunting vainly for the page she sought, lifted her head, +to see her husband lift his at the same instant.</p> + +<p>"Music?" she questioned. "Where can it come from? Not outside on such a +night as this?"</p> + +<p><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29"></a>"Did you hear it, too? I've been thinking it my imagination."</p> + +<p>"It must be the wind, but—no, it <i>is</i> music!"</p> + +<p>She rose and went to the window, pushing aside draperies and setting her +face to the frosty pane. The next instant she called in a startled way:</p> + +<p>"Oh, Red—come here!"</p> + +<p>He came slowly, but the moment he caught sight of the figure in the +storm outside his langour vanished.</p> + +<p>"Good heavens! The poor beggar! We must have him in."</p> + +<p>He ran to the hall and the outer door, and Ellen heard his shout above +the howling of the wind.</p> + +<p>"Come in—come in!"</p> + +<p>She reached the door into the hall as the slender young figure stumbled +up the steps, a violin clutched tight in fingers purple with cold. She +saw the stiff lips break into a frozen smile as her husband laid his +hand upon the thinly clad shoulder and drew the youth where he could +close the door.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you come to the door and ring, instead of fiddling out there +in the cold!" demanded Burns. "Do you think we're heathen, to shut +anybody out on a night like this?"</p> + +<p>The boy shook his head. He was a boy in size, though the maturity of his +thin face suggested that he was at least nineteen or twenty years old. +His <a name="Page_30" id="Page_30"></a>dark eyes gleamed out of hollow sockets, and his black hair, +curling thickly, was rough with neglect. But he had snatched off his +ragged soft hat even before he was inside the door, and for all the +stiffness of his chilled limbs his attitude, as he stood before his +hosts, had the unconscious grace of the foreigner.</p> + +<p>"Where do you come from?" Burns asked.</p> + +<p>Again the stranger shook his head.</p> + +<p>"He can't speak English," said Ellen.</p> + +<p>"Probably not—though he may be bluffing. We must warm and feed him, +anyhow. Will you have him in here, or shall I take him in the office?"</p> + +<p>Ellen glanced again at the shivering youth, noted that the purple hands +were clean, even to the nails, and led the way unhesitatingly into the +living room with all its beckoning warmth and beauty.</p> + +<p>"Good little sport—I knew you would," murmured Burns, as he beckoned +the boy after him.</p> + +<p>Ellen left the two alone together by the fire, while she went to prepare +a tray with Cynthia in the kitchen, filling it with the hearty food +Burns himself had left untouched. Big slices of juicy roast beef, two +hurriedly warmed sweet potatoes which had been browned in syrup in the +Southern style, crisp buttered rolls, and a pot of steaming coffee were +on the large tray which Cynthia in<a name="Page_31" id="Page_31"></a>sisted on carrying to the living-room +door for her mistress. Burns, jumping up at sight of her, took the tray, +while Ellen cleared a small table, drew up a chair, and summoned the +young stranger.</p> + +<p>The low bow he made her before he took the chair proclaimed his +breeding, as well as the smile of joy which showed the flash of his even +white teeth in the firelight. He made a little gesture of gratitude +toward both Burns and Ellen, pressing his hands over his heart and then +extending them, the expression on his face touching in its starved +restraint. Then he fell upon the food, and even though he was plainly +ravenous he ate as manneredly as any gentleman. Only by the way he +finished each tiniest crumb could they know his extremity.</p> + +<p>"By Jove, that beats eating it myself, if I were hungry as a faster on +the third day!" Burns exclaimed, as he sat turned away from the +beneficiary, his eyes apparently upon the fire. Ellen, from behind the +boy, smiled at her husband, noting how completely his air of fatigue had +fallen from him. Often before she had observed how any call upon R.P. +Burns's sympathies rode down his own need of commiseration.</p> + +<p>"Hungarian, I think, don't you?" Burns remarked, as the meal was +finished, and the youth rose to bow his thanks once more. This time +there <a name="Page_32" id="Page_32"></a>was a response. He nodded violently, smiling and throwing out his +hands.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ungahree</i>!" he said, and smiled and nodded again, and said again, +"<i>Ungahree</i>!"</p> + +<p>"He knows that word all right," said Burns, smiling back. "It's a land +of musicians. The fiddle's a good one, I'll wager."</p> + +<p>He glanced at it as he spoke, and the boy leaped for it, pressing it to +his breast. He began to tune it.</p> + +<p>"He thinks we want to be paid for his supper," Ellen exclaimed. "Can't +you make him understand we should like him to rest first?"</p> + +<p>"I'd only convey to him the idea that we didn't want to hear him play, +which would be a pity, for we do. If he's the musician he looks, by +those eyes and that mouth, we'll be more than paid. Go ahead, +Hungary—it'll make you happier than anything we could do for you."</p> + +<p>Clearly it would. Burns carried out the tray, and when he returned his +guest was standing upon the hearth rug facing Ellen, his bow uplifted. +He waited till Burns had thrown himself down on the couch again in a +sitting posture, both arms stretched along the back. Then he made his +graceful obeisance again, and drew the bow very slowly and softly over +the first string. And, at the very first note, the two who were watching +him <a name="Page_33" id="Page_33"></a>knew what was to come. It was in every line of him, that promise.</p> + +<p>It might have been his gratitude that he was voicing, so touching were +the strains that followed that first note. The air was unfamiliar, but +it sounded like a folk song of his own country, and he put into it all +the poignant, peculiar melody of such a song. His tones were exquisite, +with the sure touch of the trained violinist inspired and supported by +the emotional understanding of the genuine musician.</p> + +<p>When he had finished he stood looking downward for a moment, then as +Burns said "Bravo!" he smiled as if he understood the word, and lifted +his instrument again to his shoulder. This time his bow descended upon +the strings with a full note of triumph, and he burst into the brilliant +performance of a great masterpiece, playing with a spirit and dash which +seemed to transform him. Often his lips parted to show his white teeth, +often he swung his whole body into the rhythm of his music, until he +seemed a very part of the splendid harmonies he made. His thin cheeks +flushed, his hollow eyes grew bright, he smiled, he frowned, he shook +his slender shoulders, he even took a stride to right or left as he +played on, as if the passion of his performance would not let him rest.</p> + +<p>His listeners watched him with sympathetic and <a name="Page_34" id="Page_34"></a>comprehending interest. +Warmed and fed, his Latin nature leaping up from its deep depression to +the exaltation of the hour, the appeal he made to them was intensely +pathetic. Burns, even more ardently than his wife, responded to the +appeal. He no longer lounged among the pillows of the broad couch; he +sat erect, his eyes intent, his lips relaxed, his cares forgot. He was a +lover of music, as are many men of his profession, and he was more than +ordinarily susceptible to its influences. He drank in the tones of the +master, voiced by this devoted interpreter, like wine, and like wine +they brought the colour to his face also, and the light to his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Jove!" he murmured, as the last note died away, "he's a wonder. He must +be older than he looks. How he loves it! He's forgotten that he doesn't +know where he's to sleep to-night—but, by all that's fair, <i>we</i> know, +eh?"</p> + +<p>Ellen smiled, with a look of assent. Her own heart was warmly touched. +There was a small bedroom upstairs, plainly but comfortably furnished, +which was often used for impecunious patients who needed to remain under +observation for a day or two. It was at the service of any chance guest, +and the chance guest was surely with them to-night. There was no place +in the village to which such a vagrant as this might be <a name="Page_35" id="Page_35"></a>sent, except +the jail, and the jail, for a musician of such quality, was unthinkable. +And in the night and storm one would not turn a dog outdoors to hunt for +shelter—at least not Red Pepper Burns nor Ellen Burns, his wife.</p> + +<p>As if he could not stop, now that he had found ears to listen, the young +Hungarian played on. More and more profoundly did his music move him, +until it seemed as if he had become the very spirit of the instrument +which sung and vibrated under his thin fingers.</p> + +<p>"My word, Len, this is too good to keep all to ourselves. Let's have the +Macauleys and Chesters over. Then we'll have an excuse for paying the +chap a good sum for his work—and somehow I feel that we need an excuse +for such a gentleman as he is."</p> + +<p>"That's just the thing. I'll ask them."</p> + +<p>She was on her way to the telephone when her husband suddenly called +after her, "Wait a minute, Len." She turned back, to see the musician, +his bow faltering, suddenly lower his violin and lean against his +patron, who had leaped to his support. A minute later Burns had him +stretched upon the blue couch, and had laid his fingers on the bony +wrist.</p> + +<p>"Hang me for a simpleton, to feed him like that he's probably not tasted +solid food for days.<a name="Page_36" id="Page_36"></a> The reaction is too much, of course. He's been +playing on his nerve for the last ten minutes, and I, like an idiot, +thought it was his emotional temperament."</p> + +<p>He ran out of the room and returned with a wine glass filled with +liquid, which he administered, his arm under the ragged shoulders. Then +he patted the wasted cheek, gone suddenly white except where the excited +colour still showed in faint patches.</p> + +<p>"You'll be all right, son," he said, smiling down into the frightened +eyes, and his tone if not his words seemed to carry reassurance, for the +eyes closed with a weary flutter and the gripping fingers relaxed.</p> + +<p>"He's completely done," Burns said pityingly. He took one hand in his +own and held it in his warm grasp, at which the white lids unclosed +again, and the sensitive lips tried to smile.</p> + +<p>"I'd no business to let him play so long—I might have known. Poor boy, +he's starved for other things than food. Do you suppose anybody's held +his hand like this since he left the old country? He thought he'd find +wealth and fame in the new one—and this is what he found!"</p> + +<p>Ellen stood looking at the pair—her brawny husband, himself "completely +done" an hour before, now sitting on the edge of the couch with his new +patient's hand in his, his face wearing an ex<a name="Page_37" id="Page_37"></a>pression of keen interest, +not a sign of fatigue in his manner; the exhausted young foreigner in +his ragged clothing lying on the luxurious couch, his pale face standing +out like a fine cameo against the blue velvet of the pillow under his +dark head. If a thought of possible contamination for her home's +belongings entered her mind it found no lodgment there, so pitiful was +her heart.</p> + +<p>"Is the room ready upstairs?" Burns asked presently, when he had again +noted the feeble action of the pulse under his fingers. "What he needs +is rest and sleep, and plenty of both. Like the most of us he's kept up +while he had to, and now he's gone to pieces absolutely. To-morrow we +can send him to the hospital, perhaps, but for to-night—"</p> + +<p>"The room is ready. I sent Cynthia up at once."</p> + +<p>"Bless you, you never fail me, do you? Well—we may as well be on our +way. He's nearly asleep now."</p> + +<p>Burns stood up, throwing off his coat. But Ellen remonstrated.</p> + +<p>"Dear, you are so tired to-night. Let me call Jim over to help you carry +him up."</p> + +<p>A derisive laugh answered her. "Great Cæsar, Len! The chap's a mere bag +of bones—and if he were twice as heavy he'd be no weight for me. Jim<a name="Page_38" id="Page_38"></a> +Macauley would howl at the idea, and no wonder. Go ahead and open the +doors, please, and I'll have him up in a jiffy."</p> + +<p>He stooped over the couch, swung the slender figure up into his powerful +arms, speaking reassuringly to the eyes which slowly opened in +half-stupefied alarm. "It's all right, little Hungary. We're going to +put you to bed, like the small lost boy you are. Bring his fiddle, +Len—he won't want that out of his sight."</p> + +<p>He strode away with his burden, and marched up the stairs as if he were +carrying his own two-year-old son. Arrived in the small, comfortable +little room at the back of the house he laid his charge on the bed, and +stood looking down at him.</p> + +<p>"Len, I'll have to go the whole figure," he said—and said it not as if +the task he was about to impose upon himself were one that irked him. +"Get me hot water and soap and towels, will you? And an old pair of +pajamas. I can't put him to bed in his rags."</p> + +<p>"Shall I send for Amy?" questioned his wife, quite as if she understood +the uselessness of remonstrance.</p> + +<p>"Not much. Amy's making out bills for me to-night, we'll not interrupt +the good work. Put some bath-ammonia in the water, please—and have it +hot."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39"></a>Half an hour later he called her in to see the work of his hands. She +had brought him one of his surgical aprons with the bath equipment. With +his sleeves rolled up, his apron well splashed, his coppery hair more or +less in disarray from the occasional thrustings of a soapy hand, and his +face flushed and eager like a healthy boy's, Red Pepper Burns stood +grinning down at his patient. Little Hungary lay in the clean white bed, +his pale face shining with soap and happiness, his arms upon the +coverlet encased in the blue and white sleeves of Burns's pajamas, the +sleeves neatly turned back to accommodate the shortness of his arms. The +workman turned to Ellen as she came in.</p> + +<p>"Comfy, eh?" he observed briefly.</p> + +<p>"Absolutely, I should say, poor dear."</p> + +<p>"Ah, you wouldn't have called him that before the bath. But he is rather +a dear now, isn't he? And I think he's younger than I did downstairs. +Not over eighteen, at the most, but fully forty in the experiences and +hardships that have brought him here. Well, we'll go away and let him +rest. Wish I knew the Hungarian for 'good-night,' don't you? Anyway, if +he knows any prayers he'll say 'em, I'll venture."</p> + +<p>The dark eyes were watching him intently as he spoke, as if their owner +longed to know what this kind angel in the form of a big American +stranger <a name="Page_40" id="Page_40"></a>was saying to him. And when, in leaving him, Burns once more +laid an exploring touch upon his wrist, the two thin hands suddenly +clutched the strong one and bore it weakly to lips which kissed it +fervently.</p> + +<p>"Well, that's rather an eloquent thank-you, eh?" murmured Burns, as he +patted the hands in reply. "No doubt but he's grateful. Put the fiddle +where he can see it in the morning, will you, honey? Open the window +pretty well: I've covered him thoroughly, and he has a touch of fever to +keep him warm. Good-night, little Hungary. Luck's with you to-night, to +get into this lady's house."</p> + +<p>Downstairs by the fireside once more, the signs of his late occupation +removed, Burns stretched out an arm for his wife.</p> + +<p>"Come sit beside me in the Retreat," he invited, using the name he had +long ago given to the luxurious blue couch where he was accustomed, +since his marriage, to rest and often to catch a needed nap. He drew the +winsome figure close within his arm, resting his red head against the +dark one below it. "I don't seem to feel particularly tired, now," he +observed. "Curious, isn't it? Fatigue, as I've often noticed, is more +mental than physical—with most of us. Your ditch-digger is tired in his +back and arms, but the <a name="Page_41" id="Page_41"></a>ordinary person is merely tired because his mind +tells him he is."</p> + +<p>"You are never too tired to rouse yourself for one patient more," was +Ellen's answer to this. "The last one seems to cure you of the one +before."</p> + +<p>Burns's hearty laugh shook them both. "You can't make me out such an +enthusiast in my profession as that. I turned away two country calls +to-night—too lazy to make 'em."</p> + +<p>"But you would have gone if they couldn't have found anybody else."</p> + +<p>"That goes without saying—no merit in that. The ethics of the +profession have to be lived up to, curse 'em as we may, at times. Len, +how are we to get to know something about little Hungary upstairs? Those +eyes of his are going to follow me into my dreams to-night."</p> + +<p>"I suppose there are Hungarians in town?"</p> + +<p>"Not a one that I ever heard of. Plenty in the city, though. The waiter +at the Arcadia, where I get lunch when I'm at the hospital, is a Magyar. +By Jove, there's an idea! I'll bring Louis out, if Hungary can't get +into the hospital to-morrow—and I warn you he probably can't. I +shouldn't want him to take a twelve-mile ambulance ride in this weather. +That touch of fever may mean simple exhaustion, and it may mean look out +for pneumonia, after all the exposure he's had. I'd <a name="Page_42" id="Page_42"></a>give something to +know how it came into his crazy head to stand and fiddle outside a +private house in a January storm. Why didn't he try a cigar shop or some +other warm spot where he could pass the hat? That's what Louis must find +out for me, eh? Len, that was great music of his, wasn't it? The fellow +ought to have a job in a hotel orchestra. Louis and I between us might +get him one."</p> + +<p>Burns went to bed still working on this problem, and Ellen rejoiced that +it had superseded the anxieties of the past day. Next morning he was +early at the little foreigner's bedside, to find him resting quietly, +the fever gone, and only the intense fatigue remaining, the cure for +which was simply rest and food.</p> + +<p>"Shall we let him stay till he's fit?" Burns asked his wife.</p> + +<p>"Of course. Both Cynthia and Amy are much interested, and between them +he will have all he needs."</p> + +<p>"And I'll bring Louis out, if I have to pay for a waiter to take his +place," promised Burns.</p> + +<p>He was as good as his word. When he returned that afternoon from the +daily visit to the city hospital, where he had always many patients, he +brought with him in the powerful roadster which he drove himself a +dark-faced, pointed moustached countryman of little Hungary, who spoke +tolerable<a name="Page_43" id="Page_43"></a> English, and was much pleased and flattered to be of service +to the big doctor whom he was accustomed to serve in his best manner.</p> + +<p>Taken to the bedside, Louis gazed down at its occupant with +condescending but comprehending eyes, and spoke a few words which caused +the thin face on the pillow to break into smiles of delight, as the +eager lips answered in the same tongue. Question and answer followed in +quick succession and Louis was soon able to put Burns in possession of a +few significant facts.</p> + +<p>"He say he come to dis countree October. Try find work New York—no +good. He start to valk to countree, find vork farm. Bad time. Seeck, +cold, hungree. Fear he spoil hands for veolinn—dat's vhy he not take +vork on road, vat he could get. He museecian—good one."</p> + +<p>"Does he say that?" Burns asked, amused.</p> + +<p>Louis nodded. "Many museecians in Hungary. Franz come from Budapest. No +poor museecians dere. Budapest great ceety—better Vienna, Berlin, +Leipsic—oh, yes! See, I ask heem."</p> + +<p>He spoke to the boy again, evidently putting a meaning question, for +again the other responded with ardour, using his hands to emphasize his +assertion—for assertion it plainly was.</p> + +<p>Louis laughed. "He say ze countree of Franz Liszt know no poor museeck. +He named for Franz<a name="Page_44" id="Page_44"></a> Liszt. He play beeg museeck for you and ze ladee +last night. So?"</p> + +<p>"He did—and took us off our feet. Tell him, will you?"</p> + +<p>"He no un'erstand," laughed Louis, "eef I tell him 'off de feet.'"</p> + +<p>"That's so—no American idioms yet for him, eh? Well, say he made us +very happy with his wonderful music. I'll wager that will get over to +him."</p> + +<p>Plainly it did, to judge by the eloquence of Franz's eyes and his joyous +smile. With quick speech he responded.</p> + +<p>"He say," reported Louis, "he vant to vork for you. No wagees till he +plees you. He do anyting. You van' heem?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll have to think about that," Burns temporized. "But tell him +not to worry. We'll find a job before we let him go. He ought to play in +a restaurant or theatre, oughtn't he, Louis?"</p> + +<p>Louis shook his head. "More men nor places," he said. "But ve see—ve +see."</p> + +<p>"All right. Now ask him how he came to stand in front of my house in the +storm and fiddle."</p> + +<p>To this Louis obtained a long reply, at which he first shook his head, +then nodded and laughed, with a rejoinder which brought a sudden rush of +tears to the black eyes below. Louis turned to Burns.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45"></a>"He say man lead heem here, make heem stand by window, make sign to +heem to play. I tell heem man knew soft heart eenside."</p> + +<p>To the edge of his coppery hair the blood rushed into the face of Red +Pepper Burns. Whether he would be angry or amused was for the moment an +even chance, as Ellen, watching him, understood. Then he shook his fist +with a laugh.</p> + +<p>"Just wait till I catch that fellow!" he threatened. "A nice way out of +his own obligations to a starving fellow man."</p> + +<p>He sent Louis back to town on the electric car line, with a round fee in +his pocket, and the instruction to leave no stone unturned to find Franz +work for his violin, himself promising to aid him in any plan he might +formulate.</p> + +<p>In three days the young Hungarian was so far himself that Burns had him +downstairs to sit by the office fire, and a day more put him quite on +his feet. Careful search had discovered a temporary place for him in a +small hotel orchestra, whose second violin was ill, and Burns agreed to +take him into the city. The evening before he was to go, Ellen invited a +number of her friends and neighbours in to hear Franz play.</p> + +<p>Dressed in a well-fitting suit of blue serge Franz looked a new being. +The suit had been contributed by Arthur Chester, Burns's neighbour and +<a name="Page_46" id="Page_46"></a>good friend next door upon the right, and various other accessories had +been supplied by James Macauley, also Burns's neighbour and good friend +next door upon the left and the husband of Martha Macauley, Ellen's +sister. Even so soon the rest and good food had filled out the deepest +hollows in the emaciated cheeks, and happiness had lighted the sombre +eyes. Those eyes followed Burns about with the adoring gaze of a +faithful dog.</p> + +<p>"It's evident you've attached one more devoted follower to your train, +Red," whispered Winifred Chester, in an interval of the violin playing.</p> + +<p>"Well, he's a devotee worth having," answered Burns, watching his +protégé as Franz looked over a pile of music with Ellen, signifying his +pleasure every time they came upon familiar sheets. The two had found +common ground in their love of the most emotional of all the arts, and +Ellen had discovered rare delight in accompanying that ardent violin in +some of the scores both knew and loved.</p> + +<p>"He's as handsome as a picture to-night, isn't he?" Winifred pursued. +"How Arthur's old blue suit transforms him. And wasn't it clever of +Ellen to have him wear that soft white shirt with the rolling collar and +flowing black tie? It gives him the real musician's look."</p> + +<p>"Trust you women to work for dramatic effects," murmured Burns. "Here we +go—and I'll wager <a name="Page_47" id="Page_47"></a>it'll be something particularly telling, judging by +the way they both look keyed up to it. Ellen plays like a virtuoso +herself to-night, doesn't she?"</p> + +<p>"It's enough to inspire any one to have that fiddle at her shoulder," +remarked James Macauley, who, hanging over the couch, had been listening +to this bit of talk.</p> + +<p>The performance which followed captured them all, even practical and +energetic Martha Macauley, who had often avowed that she considered the +study of music a waste of time in a busy world.</p> + +<p>"Though I think, after all," she observed to Arthur Chester, who lounged +by her side, revelling in the entertainment with the zest of the man who +would give his whole time to affairs like these if it were not necessary +for him to make a living at the practice of some more prosaic +profession, "it's quite as much the interest of having such a stagey +character performing for us as it is his music. Did you ever see any +human being throw his whole soul into anything like that? One couldn't +help but watch him if he weren't making a sound."</p> + +<p>"It's certainly refreshing, in a world where we all try to cover up our +real feelings, to see anybody give himself away so naïvely as that," +Chester replied. "But there's no doubt about the quality of his music. +He was born, not made. And, by<a name="Page_48" id="Page_48"></a> George, Len certainly plays up to him. I +didn't know she had it in her, for all I've been admiring her +accomplishments for four years."</p> + +<p>"Ellen's all temperament, anyway," said Ellen's sister.</p> + +<p>Chester looked at her curiously. Martha was a fine-looking young woman, +in a very wholesome and clean-cut fashion. There was no feminine +artfulness in the way she bound her hair smoothly upon her head, none in +the plain cut of her simple evening attire, absolutely none in her +manner. Glancing from Martha to her sister, as he had often done before +in wonderment at the contrast between them, he noted as usual how +exquisitely Ellen was dressed, though quite as simply, in a way, as her +practical sister. But in every line of her smoke-blue silken frock was +the most subtle art, as Chester, who had a keen eye for such matters and +a fastidious taste, could readily recognize. From the crown of her dark +head to the toe of the blue slipper with which she pressed the pedal of +the great piano which she had brought from her old home in the South, +she was a picture to feast one's eyes upon.</p> + +<p>"Give me temperament, then—and let some other fellow take the common +sense," mused Arthur Chester to himself. "Ellen has both, and Red's in +luck. It was a great day for him when the <a name="Page_49" id="Page_49"></a>lovely young widow came his +way—and he knows it. What a home she makes him—what a home!"</p> + +<p>His eyes roved about the beautiful living room, as they had often done +before. His own home, next door, was comfortable and more than +ordinarily attractive, but he knew of no spot in the town which +possessed the subtle charm of this in which he sat. His wife, Winifred, +was always trying to reproduce within their walls the indefinable +quality which belonged to everything Ellen touched, and always saying in +despair, "It's no use—Ellen is Ellen, and other people can't be like +her."</p> + +<p>"Better let it go at that," her husband sometimes responded. "You're +good enough for me." Which was quite true, for Winifred Chester was a +peculiarly lovable young woman. He noted afresh to-night that beside +Martha Macauley's somewhat heavy good looks Winifred seemed a creature +of infinite and delightful variety.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the music had made them all more or less analytic, for in an +interval James Macauley, comfortably ensconced in a great winged chair +for which he was accustomed to steer upon entering this room, where he +was nearly as much at home as within his own walls, remarked, "What is +there about music like that that sets you to thinking everybody in sight +is about the best ever?"</p> + +<p><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50"></a>"Does it have that effect on you?" queried Burns, lazily, from the blue +couch. "That's a good thing for a fellow of a naturally critical +disposition."</p> + +<p>"Critical, am I? Why, within a week I paid you the greatest compliment +in my power."</p> + +<p>"Really!"</p> + +<p>"If it hadn't been for me this company would never have been gathered, +to listen to these wondrous strains."</p> + +<p>"How's that?" Burns turned on him a suddenly interested eye.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm not telling. It's enough that the thing came about." Macauley +looked around for general approbation.</p> + +<p>Red Pepper sat up. "It was you stood the poor beggar up under my window, +on that howling night, was it, Jim? I've been looking for the man that +did it."</p> + +<p>"Why," said Macauley comfortably, "the chap asked me to point him to a +doctor's office—said he had a bit of a cold. I said you were the one +and only great and original M.D. upon earth, and as luck would have it +he was almost at your door. I said that if he didn't find you in he +should come over to my house and we would fix him up with cough drops. +He thanked me and passed on. As luck would have it you were in."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51"></a>Red Pepper glared at him. A chuckle from Arthur Chester caused him to +turn his eyes that way. He scrutinized his guests in turn, and detected +signs of mirth. Winifred Chester's pretty shoulders were shaking. Martha +Macauley's lips were pressed close together. The others were all +smiling.</p> + +<p>Burns turned upon Winifred, who sat nearest. "Tell me the truth about +this thing," he commanded.</p> + +<p>She shook her head, but she got no peace until at length she gave him +the tale.</p> + +<p>"Arthur and I were over at Jim's. He came in and said a wager was up +among some men outside as to whether if that poor boy came and fiddled +under your window you'd take him in and keep him over night. Somebody'd +been saying things against you, down street somewhere—" she hesitated, +glancing at her husband, who nodded, and said, "Go on—he'll have it out +of us now, anyhow."</p> + +<p>"They said," she continued, "that you were the most brutal surgeon in +the State, and that you hadn't any heart. Some of them made this wager, +and they all sneaked up here behind the one that steered Franz to your +window."</p> + +<p>Burns's quick colour had leaped to his face at this recital, as they +were all accustomed to see it, but <a name="Page_52" id="Page_52"></a>for an instant he made no reply. +Winifred looked at him steadily, as one who was not afraid.</p> + +<p>"We were all in a dark window watching. If you hadn't taken him in we +would. But—O Red! We knew—we knew that heart of yours."</p> + +<p>"And who started that wager business?" Burns inquired, in a muffled +voice.</p> + +<p>"Why, Jim, of course. Who else would take such a chance?"</p> + +<p>"Was it a serious wager?"</p> + +<p>"Of course it was."</p> + +<p>"Even odds?"</p> + +<p>"No, it was Jim against the crowd. And for a ridiculously high stake."</p> + +<p>Red Pepper glared at James Macauley once more. "You old pirate!" he +growled. "How dared you take such a chance on me? And when you know I'm +death on that gambling propensity of yours?"</p> + +<p>"I know you are," replied Macauley, with a satisfied grin. "And you know +perfectly well I haven't staked a red copper for a year. But that sort +of talk I overheard was too much for me. Besides, I ran no possible risk +for my money. I was betting on a sure thing."</p> + +<p>Burns got up, amidst the affectionate laughter which followed this +explanation, and walked over to where Franz stood, his eager eyes fixed +upon his <a name="Page_53" id="Page_53"></a>new and adored friend, who, he somehow divined, was the target +for some sort of badinage.</p> + +<p>"Little Hungary," he said, smiling into the uplifted, boyish face, with +his hand on the slender shoulder, "it came out all right that time, but +don't you ever play under my window again in a January blizzard. If you +do, I'll kick you out into the storm!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>ANNE LINTON'S TEMPERATURE</h3> + + +<p>"Is Doctor Burns in?"</p> + +<p>"He's not in. He will be here from two till five this afternoon. Could +you come then?" Miss Mathewson regarded the young stranger at the door +with more than ordinary interest. The face which was lifted to her was +one of quite unusual beauty, with astonishing eyes under resolute dark +brows, though the hair which showed from under the small and +close-fitting hat of black was of a wonderful and contradictory colour. +It was almost the shade, it occurred to Amy Mathewson, of that which +thatched the head of Red Pepper Burns himself, but it was more +picturesque hair than his, finer of texture, with a hint of curl. The +mass of it which showed at the back as the stranger turned her head away +for a moment, evidently hesitating over her next course of action, had +in it tints of bronze which were more beautiful than Burns's coppery +hues.</p> + +<p>"Would you care to wait?" inquired Miss Mathewson, entirely against her +own principles.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55"></a>It was not quite one o'clock, and Burns always lunched in the city, +after his morning at the hospital, and reached home barely in time for +those afternoon village office hours which began at two. His assistant +did not as a rule encourage the arrival of patients in the office as +early as this, knowing that they were apt to become impatient and +aggrieved by their long wait. But something about the slightly drooping +figure of the girl before her, in her black clothes, with a small +handbag on her arm, and a look of appeal on her face, suggested to the +experienced nurse that here was a patient who must not be turned away.</p> + +<p>The girl looked up eagerly. "If I might," she said in a tone of relief. +"I really have nowhere to go until I have seen the Doctor."</p> + +<p>Miss Mathewson led her in and gave her the most comfortable chair in the +room, a big, half shabby leather armchair, near the fireplace and close +beside a broad table whereon the latest current magazines were arranged +in orderly piles. The girl sank into the chair as if its wide arms were +welcome after a weary morning. She looked up at Miss Mathewson with a +faint little smile.</p> + +<p>"I haven't been sitting much to-day," she said.</p> + +<p>"This first spring weather makes every one feel rather tired," replied +Amy, noting how heavy were <a name="Page_56" id="Page_56"></a>the shadows under the brown eyes with their +almost black lashes—an unusual combination with the undeniably russet +hair.</p> + +<p>From her seat at the desk, where she was posting Burns's day book, the +nurse observed without seeming to do so that the slim figure in the old +armchair sat absolutely without moving, except once when the head +resting against the worn leather turned so that the cheek lay next it. +And after a very short time Miss Mathewson realized that the waiting +patient had fallen asleep. She studied her then, for something about the +young stranger had aroused her interest.</p> + +<p>The girl was obviously poor, for the black suit, though carefully +pressed, was of cheap material, the velvet on the small black hat had +been caught in more than one shower, and the black gloves had been many +times painstakingly mended. The small feet alone showed that their owner +had allowed herself one luxury, that of good shoes—and the daintiness +of those feet made a strong appeal to the observer.</p> + +<p>As for the face resting against the chair back, it was flushed after a +fashion which suggested illness rather than health, and Miss Mathewson +realized presently that the respiration of the sleeper was not quite +what it should be. Whether this were due to fatigue or coming illness +she could not tell.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57"></a>Half-past one! The first early caller was slowing a small motor at the +curb outside when Amy Mathewson gently touched the girl's arm. "Come +into the other room, please," she said.</p> + +<p>The brown eyes opened languidly. The black-gloved hand clutched at the +handbag, and the girl rose. "I'm so sorry," she murmured. "I don't know +how I came to go to sleep."</p> + +<p>"You were tired out. If I had known I should have brought you in here +before," Amy said, leading her into the consulting room. "It is still +half an hour before Doctor Burns will be in, and you must lie here on +his couch while you wait."</p> + +<p>"Oh, thank you, but I ought not to go to sleep. I—have you just a +minute to spare? I should like to show you a little book I am selling—"</p> + +<p>Miss Mathewson suffered a sudden revulsion of feeling. So this girl was +only a book agent. First on the list of what by two o'clock would be a +good-sized assemblage of waiting patients, she must not be allowed to +take Doctor Burns's time to exploit her wares. Yet, even as Amy +regretted having brought a book agent into this inner sanctum, the girl +looked up from searching in her handbag and seemed to recognize the +prejudice she had excited.</p> + +<p>"Oh, but I'm a patient, too," she said with a little smile. "I didn't +expect to take the Doctor's time telling him about the book. But you—I +<a name="Page_58" id="Page_58"></a>thought you might be interested. It's a little book of bedtime stories +for children. They are very jolly little tales. Would you care to see +it?"</p> + +<p>Now Amy Mathewson was the fortunate or unfortunate—as you happen to +regard such things—possessor of a particularly warm heart, and the +result of this appeal was that she took the book away with her into the +outer office, promising to look it over if the seller of it would lie +down upon the couch and rest quietly. She was convinced that the girl +was much more than weary—she was very far from well. The revealing +light of that consulting room had struck upon the upturned face and had +shown Miss Mathewson's trained eyes certain signs which alarmed her.</p> + +<p>So it came about that Red Pepper Burns, coming in ruddy from his +twelve-mile dash home, and feeling particularly fit for the labours of +the afternoon in consequence of having found every hospital patient of +his own on the road to recovery—two of them having taken a +right-about-face from a condition which the day before had pointed +toward trouble—discovered his first office patient lying fast asleep +upon the consulting room couch.</p> + +<p>"She seemed so worn out I put her here," explained Miss Mathewson, +standing beside him. "She falls asleep the moment she is off her feet."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59"></a>"Hm—m," was his reply as he thrust his arms into his white +office-jacket. "Well, best wake her up, though it seems a pity. Looks as +if she'd been on a hunger strike, eh?" he added under his breath.</p> + +<p>Miss Mathewson had the girl awake again in a minute, and she sat up, an +expression of contrition crossing her face as she caught sight of the +big doctor at the other side of the room, his back toward her. When +Burns turned, at Amy's summons, he beheld the slim figure sitting +straight on the edge of the broad couch, the brown eyes fixed on him.</p> + +<p>"Tired out?" he asked pleasantly. "Take this chair, please, so I can see +all you have to tell me—and a few things you don't tell me."</p> + +<p>It did not take him long. His eyes on the face which was too flushed, +his fingers on the pulse which beat too fast, his thermometer +registering a temperature too high, all told him that here was work for +him. The questions he asked brought replies which confirmed his fears. +Nothing in his manner indicated, however, that he was doing considerable +quick thinking. His examination over, he sat back in his chair and began +a second series of questions, speaking in a more than ordinarily quiet +but cheerful way.</p> + +<p>"Will you tell me just a bit about your personal affairs?" he asked. "I +understand that you come <a name="Page_60" id="Page_60"></a>from some distance. Have you a home and +family?"</p> + +<p>"No family—for the last two years, since my father died."</p> + +<p>"And no home?"</p> + +<p>"If I am ill, Doctor Burns, I will look after myself."</p> + +<p>He studied her. The brown eyes met the scrutinizing hazel ones without +flinching. Whether or not the spirit flinched he could not be sure. The +hazel eyes were very kindly.</p> + +<p>"You have relatives somewhere whom we might let know of this?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head determinedly. Her head lifted ever so little.</p> + +<p>"You are quite alone in the world?"</p> + +<p>"For all present purposes—yes, Doctor Burns."</p> + +<p>"I can't just believe," he said gently, "that it is not very important +to somebody to know if you are ill."</p> + +<p>"It is just my affair," she answered with equal courtesy of manner but +no less finally. "Believe me, please—and tell me what to do. Shall I +not be better to-morrow—or in a day or two?"</p> + +<p>He was silent for a moment. Then, "It is not a time for you to be +without friends," said Red Pepper Burns. "I will prove to you that you +have them at hand. After that you will find there are <a name="Page_61" id="Page_61"></a>others. I am +going to take you to a pleasant place I know of, where you will have +nothing to do but to lie still and rest and get well. The best of nurses +will look after you. You will obey orders for a little—my orders, if +you want to trust me—"</p> + +<p>"Where is this place?" The question was a little breathless.</p> + +<p>"Where do you guess?"</p> + +<p>"In—a hospital?"</p> + +<p>"In one of the best in the world."</p> + +<p>"I am—pretty ill then?"</p> + +<p>"It's a bit of a wonder," said Burns in his quietest tone, "how you have +kept around these last four days. I wish you hadn't."</p> + +<p>"If I hadn't," said the girl rather faintly, "I shouldn't have been in +this town and I shouldn't have come to Doctor Burns. So—I'm glad I +did."</p> + +<p>"Good!" said Burns, smiling. "It's fine to start with the confidence of +one's patient. I'm glad you're going to trust me. Now we'll take you to +another room where you can lie down again till my office hours are over +and I can run into the city with you."</p> + +<p>He rose, beckoning. But his patient protested: "Please tell me how to +get there. I can go perfectly well. My head is better, I think."</p> + +<p>"That's lucky. But the first of my orders Miss Linton, is that you come +with me now."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62"></a>He summoned Miss Mathewson, gave her directions, and dismissed the two. +In ten minutes the heavy eyes were again closed, while their owner lay +motionless again upon a bed in an inner room which was often used for +such purposes.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry I can't take her in now," Burns said to Amy presently in an +interval between patients. "I don't want to call the ambulance out here +for a walking case, and there's no need of startling her with it, +anyhow. I wish I had some way to send her."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Jordan King just came into the office. His car is outside. Couldn't +he take her in?"</p> + +<p>"Of course he could—and would, I've no doubt. He's only after his +mother's prescription. Send him in here next, will you, please?"</p> + +<p>To the tall, well-built, black-eyed young man who answered this summons +in some surprise at being admitted before his turn, Burns spoke crisply:</p> + +<p>"Here's the prescription, Jord, and you'll have to take it to Wood's to +get it filled. I hope it'll do your mother a lot of good, but I'm not +promising till I've tried it out pretty well. Now will you do me a +favour?"</p> + +<p>"Anything you like, Doctor."</p> + +<p>"Thanks. I'm sending a patient to the hospital—a stranger stranded here +ill. She ought not to <a name="Page_63" id="Page_63"></a>be out of bed another hour, though she walked to +the office and would walk away again if I'd let her—which I won't. I +can't get off for three hours yet. Will you take her in to the Good +Samaritan for me? I'll telephone ahead, and some one will meet her at +the door. All right?"</p> + +<p>He looked up. Jordan King—young civil engineer of rising reputation in +spite of the family wealth which would have made him independent of his +own exertions, if he could possibly have been induced by an adoring, +widowed mother to remain under her wing—stood watching him with a smile +on his character-betraying lips.</p> + +<p>"You ought to have an executive position of some sort, Doctor Burns," he +observed, "you're so strong on orders. I've got mine. Where's the lady? +Do I have to be silent or talkative? Is she to have pillows? Am I to +help her out?"</p> + +<p>"She'll walk out—but that and the walk in will be the last she'll take +for some time. Talk as much as you like; it'll help her to forget that +she's alone in the world at present except for us. Go out to your car; +I'll send her out with Miss Mathewson."</p> + +<p>Burns turned to his desk, and King obediently went out. Five minutes +later, as he stood waiting beside his car, a fine but hard-used roadster +of impressive lines and plenty of power, the office nurse <a name="Page_64" id="Page_64"></a>and her +patient emerged. King noted in some surprise the slender young figure, +the interest-compelling face with its too vivid colour in cheeks that +looked as if ordinarily they were white, the apparel which indicated +lack of means, though the bearing of the wearer unmistakably suggested +social training.</p> + +<p>"I thought she'd be an elderly one somehow," he said in congratulation +of himself. "Jolly, what hair! Poor little girl; she does look sick—but +plucky. Hope I can get her in all right."</p> + +<p>Outwardly he was the picture of respectful attention as Miss Mathewson +presented him, calling the girl "Miss Linton," and bidding him wrap her +warmly against the spring wind.</p> + +<p>"I'll take the best care of her I know," he promised with a friendly +smile. He tucked a warm rug around her, taking special pains with her +small feet, whose well-chosen covering he did not fail to note. "All +right?" he asked as he finished.</p> + +<p>"Very comfortable, thank you. It's ever so kind of you."</p> + +<p>"Glad to do anything for Doctor Burns," King responded, taking his place +beside her. "Now shall we go fast or slow?"</p> + +<p>"Just as you like, please. I don't feel very ill just now, and this air +is so good on my face."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3>TWO RED HEADS</h3> + + +<p>Jordan King set his own speed in the powerful roadster, reflecting that +Miss Linton, to judge from her worn black clothes, was probably not +accustomed to motoring and so making the pace a moderate one. Fast or +slow, it would not take long to cover the twelve miles over the +macadamized road to the hospital in the city, and if it was to be her +last bath in the good outdoors for some time, as the doctor had +said—King drew a long breath, filling his own sturdy lungs with the +balmy yet potent April air, feeling very sorry for the unknown little +person by his side.</p> + +<p>"Would you rather I didn't talk?" he inquired when a mile or two had +been covered in silence.</p> + +<p>She lifted her eyes to his, and for the first time he got a good look +into them. They were very wonderful eyes, and none the less wonderful +because of the fever which made them almost uncannily brilliant between +their dark lashes.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I wish you would talk, if you don't mind!"<a name="Page_66" id="Page_66"></a> she answered—and he +noted as he had at first how warmly pleasant were the tones of her +voice, which was a bit deeper than one would have expected. "I've heard +nobody talk for days—except to say they didn't care to buy my book."</p> + +<p>"Your book? Have you written a book?"</p> + +<p>"I'm selling one." This astonished him, but he did not let it show. It +was certainly enough to make any girl ill to have to go about selling +books. He wondered how it happened. She opened her handbag and took out +the small book. "I don't want to sell you one," she said. "You wouldn't +have any use for it. It's a little set of stories for children."</p> + +<p>"But I do want to buy one," he protested. "I've a lot of nieces and +nephews always coming at me for stories."</p> + +<p>She shook her head. "You can't buy one. I'd like to give you one if you +would take it, to show you how I appreciate this beautiful drive."</p> + +<p>"Of course I'll take it," he said quickly, "and delighted at the +chance." He slipped the book into his pocket. "As for the drive, it's +much jollier not to be covering the ground alone. I wish, though—" and +he stopped, feeling that he was probably going to say the wrong thing.</p> + +<p>She seemed to know what it would have been. "You're sorry to be taking +me to the hospital?"<a name="Page_67" id="Page_67"></a> she suggested. "You needn't be. I didn't want to +go, just at first, but then—I felt I could trust the Doctor. He was so +kind, and his hair was so like mine, he seemed like a sort of big older +brother."</p> + +<p>"Red Pepper Burns seems like that to a lot of people, including myself. +I don't look like much of a candidate for illness, but I've had an +accident or two, and he's pulled me through in great shape. You're right +in trusting him and you can keep right on, to the last ditch—" He +stopped short again, with an inward thrust at himself for being so +blundering in his suggestions to this girl, who, for all he knew, might +be on her way to that "last ditch" from which not even Burns could save +her.</p> + +<p>But the girl herself seemed to have paused at his first phrase. "What +did you call the Doctor?" she asked, turning her eyes upon him again.</p> + +<p>"What did I—oh! 'Red Pepper.' Yes—I've no business to call him that, +of course, and I don't to his face, though his friends who are a bit +older than I usually do, and people speak of him that way. It's his +hair, of course—and—well, he has rather a quick temper. People with +that coloured hair—But you're wrong in saying yours is like his," he +added quickly.</p> + +<p>For the first time he saw a smile touch her lips. "So he has a quick +temper," she mused. "I'm glad <a name="Page_68" id="Page_68"></a>of that—I have one myself. It goes with +the hair surely enough."</p> + +<p>"It goes with some other things," ventured Jordan King, determined, if +he made any more mistakes, to make them on the side of encouragement. +"Pluck, and endurance, and keeping jolly when you don't feel so—if you +don't mind my saying it."</p> + +<p>"One has to have a few of those things to start out into the world +with," said Miss Linton slowly, looking straight ahead again.</p> + +<p>"One certainly does. Doctor Burns understands that as well as any man I +know. And he likes to find those things in other people." Then with +tales of some of the Doctor's experiences which young King had heard he +beguiled the way; and by the time he had told Miss Linton a story or two +about certain experiences of his own in the Rockies, the car was +approaching the city. Presently they were drawing up before the group of +wide-porched, long buildings, not unattractive in aspect, which formed +the hospital known as the Good Samaritan.</p> + +<p>"It's a pretty good place," announced King in a matter-of-fact way, +though inwardly he was suffering a decided pang of sympathy for the +young stranger he was to leave within its walls. "And the Doctor said +he'd have some one meet us who knew all about you, so there'd be no +fuss."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69"></a>He leaped out and came around to her side. She began to thank him once +more, but he cut her short. "I'm going in with you, if I may," he said. +"Something might go wrong about their understanding, and I could save +you a bit of bother."</p> + +<p>She made no objection, and he helped her out. He kept his hand under her +arm as they went up the steps, and did not let her go until they were in +a small reception room, where they were asked to wait for a minute. He +realized now more than he had done before her weakness and the sense of +loneliness that was upon her. He stood beside her, hat in hand, wishing +he had some right to let her know more definitely than he had ventured +to do how sorry he was for her, and how she could count on his thinking +about her as a brother might while she was within these walls.</p> + +<p>But Burns's message evidently had taken effect, as his messages usually +did, for after a very brief wait two figures in uniform appeared, one +showing the commanding presence of a person in authority, the other +wearing the pleasantly efficient aspect of the active nurse. Miss Linton +was to be taken to her room at once, the necessary procedure for +admittance being attended to later.</p> + +<p>Miss Linton seemed to know something about hospitals, for she offered +instant remonstrance. "It's a mistake, I think," she said, lifting her +head <a name="Page_70" id="Page_70"></a>as if it were very heavy, but speaking firmly. "I prefer not to +have a room. Please put me in your least expensive ward."</p> + +<p>The person in authority smiled. "Doctor Burns said room," she returned. +"Nobody here is accustomed to dispute Doctor Burns's orders."</p> + +<p>"But I must dispute them," persisted the girl. "I am not—willing—to +take a room."</p> + +<p>"Don't concern yourself about that now," said the other. "You can settle +it with the Doctor when he comes by and by."</p> + +<p>Jordan King inwardly chuckled. "I wonder if it's going to be a case of +two red heads," he said to himself. "I'll bet on R.P."</p> + +<p>The nurse put her arm through Miss Linton's. "Come," she said gently. +"You ought not to be standing."</p> + +<p>The girl turned to King, and put out her small hand in its mended glove. +He grasped it and dared to give it a strong pressure, and to say in a +low tone: "It'll be all right, you know. Keep a stiff upper lip. We're +not going to forget you." He very nearly said "I."</p> + +<p>"Good-bye," she said. "I shall not forget how kind you've been."</p> + +<p>Then she was gone through the big door, the tall nurse beside her +supporting steps which seemed <a name="Page_71" id="Page_71"></a>suddenly to falter, and King was staring +after her, feeling his heart contract with sympathy.</p> + +<hr class="fifty" /> + +<p>Four hours later Anne Linton opened her eyes, after an interval of +unconsciousness which had seemed to the nurse who looked in now and then +less like a sleep than a stupor, to find a pair of broad shoulders +within her immediate horizon, and to feel the same lightly firm pressure +on her wrist that she had felt before that afternoon. She looked up +slowly into Burns's eyes.</p> + +<p>"Not so bad, is it?" said his low and reassuring voice. "Bed more +comfortable than doctor's office chairs? Won't mind if you don't ring +any door bells to-morrow? Just let everything go and don't worry—and +you'll be all right."</p> + +<p>"This room—" began the weary young voice—she was really much more +weary now that she had stopped trying to keep up than seemed at all +reasonable—"I can't possibly—"</p> + +<p>"It's just the place for you. Don't do any thinking on that point. You +know you agreed to take my orders, and this is one of them."</p> + +<p>"But I can't possibly—"</p> + +<p>"I said they were my orders," repeated Burns. "But that was a +misstatement. They're the orders of some one else, more powerful than I +am under this roof—and that's saying something, I assure <a name="Page_72" id="Page_72"></a>you. I think +you'll have to meet my wife. She's come on purpose to see you. She was +away when you were at the office."</p> + +<p>He beckoned, and another figure moved quietly into range of the brown +eyes which were smoldering with the first advances of the fever. This +figure came around to the other side of the narrow high bed and sat down +beside it. Miss Linton looked into the face, as it seemed to her, of one +of the most attractive women she had ever seen. It was a face which +looked down at her with the sweetest sympathy in its expression, and yet +with that same high cheer which was in the face of the man on the other +side of the bed.</p> + +<p>"My dear little girl," said a low, rich voice, "this is my room, and I +often have the pleasure of seeing my special friends use it. And I come +to see them here. When you are getting well, as you will be by and by, I +can have much nicer talks with you than if you were in a ward. Now that +you understand, you will let me have my way?".</p> + +<p>The burning brown eyes looked into the soft black ones for a full +minute, then, with a long-drawn breath, the tense expression in the +stranger's relaxed. "I see," said the weary voice. "You are used to +having your way—just as he is. I'll have to let you because I haven't +any strength left <a name="Page_73" id="Page_73"></a>to fight with. You are wonderfully kind. But—I'm not +a little girl."</p> + +<p>Ellen Burns smiled. "We'll play you are, for a while," she said. "And—I +want you to know that, little or big, you are my friend. So now you have +both Doctor Burns and me, and you are not alone any more."</p> + +<p>The heavy lashes closed over the brown eyes, and the lids were held +tightly shut as if to keep tears back. Seeing this, Ellen rose.</p> + +<p>"Red," she said, "are you going to let us have Miss Arden?"</p> + +<p>"Won't anybody else do?"</p> + +<p>"Do you need her badly somewhere else?"</p> + +<p>"If there were ten of her I could use them all!" declared her husband +emphatically.</p> + +<p>"Nevertheless—"</p> + +<p>Red Pepper Burns got up. He summoned a nurse waiting just outside the +door. "Please send Miss Arden here for a minute," he requested. Then he +turned back. "Are you satisfied with your power?" he asked his wife.</p> + +<p>She nodded. "Quite. But I think you feel, as I do, that this is one of +the ten places where she will be better than another."</p> + +<p>"She's a wonder, all right."</p> + +<p>The patient in the bed presently was bidden to look at her new nurse, +one who was to take care <a name="Page_74" id="Page_74"></a>of her much of the time. She lifted her heavy +eyes unwillingly, then she drew another deep breath of relief. "I would +rather have you," she murmured to the serene brow, the kind eyes, the +gently smiling lips of the girl who stood beside her.</p> + +<p>"There's a tribute," laughed Burns softly. "They all feel like that when +they look at you, Selina. And what Mrs. Burns wants she usually gets. +You may special this case to-night, if you are ready to begin night duty +again."</p> + +<p>"I am quite ready," said Miss Arden.</p> + +<p>Burns turned to the bed again. "You are in the best hands we have to +give you," he said. "You are to trust everything to those hands. +Good-night. I'll see you in the morning."</p> + +<p>"Good-night, dear," whispered Mrs. Burns, bending for an instant over +the bed.</p> + +<p>"Oh you angels!" murmured the girl as they left her, her eyes following +them.</p> + +<hr class="fifty" /> + +<p>It was ten days later, in the middle of a wonderful night in early May, +that Miss Arden, beginning to be sure that the case which had interested +her so much was going to give her a hard time before it should be +through, listened to words which roused in her deeper wonder than she +had yet felt for the most unusual patient she had had in a long time. +Although there was as yet nothing that <a name="Page_75" id="Page_75"></a>could be called real delirium, a +tendency to talk in a light-headed sort of way was becoming noticeable. +Sitting by the window, the one light in the room deeply shaded, she +heard the voice suddenly say:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"This evens things up a little, doesn't it? I know a little + more about it now—you must realize that, if you are keeping + track of me—and I know you are—you would—even from another + world. Things aren't fair—they aren't. That you should have + to suffer all you did, to bring you to that pass—while I—But + I know a good deal about it now—really I do. And I'm going to + know more. I didn't sell a single book to-day. You had lots of + such days, didn't you? + Poor—pale—tired—heartsick—heartbroken girl!"</p></div> + +<p>A little mirthless laugh sounded from the bed. "I wonder how many people +ever let a person who is selling something at the door get into the +house. And if they let her in, do they ever, <i>ever</i> ask her to sit down? +The places where I've stood, telling them about the book, while they +were telling me they didn't want it—stood and stood—and stood—with +great easy chairs in sight! Oh, that chair in my doctor's office—it was +the first chair I'd sat in that whole morning. I went to sleep in it, I +think."</p> + +<p>There followed a long silence, as if the thought <a name="Page_76" id="Page_76"></a>of sleep had brought +it on. But then the rambling talk began again.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"His hair is red—red, like mine. I think that's why his heart + is so warm. Yet her heart is warm, too, and her hair is almost + black. The other man's hair was pretty dark, too, and his + heart seemed—well, not exactly cold. Did he send me some + daffodils the other day? I can't seem to remember. It seems as + if I had seen some—pretty things—lovely, springy things. + Perhaps Mrs.—the red-headed doctor's wife—queer I can't + think of their names—perhaps she sent them. It would be like + her."</p></div> + +<p>The nurse's glance wandered, in the faint light, to where a great jar of +daffodils stood upon the farther window sill, their heads nodding +faintly in the night breeze. Jordan King's card, which had come with +them, was tucked away in a drawer near by with two other cards, bearing +the same name, which had accompanied other flowers. Miss Arden doubted +if her patient realized who had sent any of them. Afterward—if there +was to be an afterward—she would show the cards to her. Miss Arden, +like many other people, knew Jordan King by reputation, for the family +was an old and established one in the city, and the early success of the +youngest son in a line not often taken up by the sons of such families +was note<a name="Page_77" id="Page_77"></a>worthy. Also he was good to look at, and Miss Arden, +experienced nurse though she was and devoted to her profession, had not +lost her appreciation of youth and health and good looks in those who +were not her patients.</p> + +<p>Unexpectedly, at this hour of the night—it was well toward one +o'clock—the door suddenly opened very quietly and a familiar big figure +entered. Springing up to meet Doctor Burns, Miss Arden showed no +surprise. It was a common thing for this man, summoned to the hospital +at unholy hours for some critical case, to take time to look in on +another patient not technically in need of him.</p> + +<p>The head on the pillow turned at the slight sound beside it. Two wide +eyes stared up at Burns. "You've made a mistake, I think," said the +patient's voice, politely yet firmly. "My doctor has red hair. I know +him by that. Your hair is black."</p> + +<p>"I presume it is, in this light," responded Burns, sitting down by the +bed. "It's pretty red, though, by daylight. In that case will you let me +stay a minute?" His fingers pressed the pulse. Then his hand closed over +hers with a quieting touch. "Since you're awake," he said, "you may as +well have one extra bath to send you back to sleep."</p> + +<p>The head on the pillow signified unwillingness.<a name="Page_78" id="Page_78"></a> "I'd take one to please +my red-headed doctor, but not you."</p> + +<p>"You'd do anything for him, eh?" questioned Burns, his eyes on the chart +which the nurse had brought him and upon which she was throwing the +light of a small flash. "Well, you see he wants you to have this bath; +he told me so."</p> + +<p>"Very well, then," she said with a sigh. "But I don't like them. They +make me shiver."</p> + +<p>"I know it. But they're good for you. They keep your red-headed doctor +master of the situation. You want him to be that, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"He'd be that anyway," said she confidently.</p> + +<p>Burns smiled, but the smile faded quickly. He gave a few brief +directions, then slipped away as quietly as he had come.</p> + +<hr class="fifty" /> + +<p>It was well into the next week when one morning he encountered Jordan +King, who had been out of town for several days. King came up to him +eagerly. Since this meeting occurred just outside the hospital, where +Burns's car had been standing in its accustomed place for the last hour, +it might not have been a wholly accidental encounter.</p> + +<p>King made no attempt to maneuver for information. Maneuvering with Red +Pepper Burns, as the young man was well aware, seldom served any +<a name="Page_79" id="Page_79"></a>purpose but to subject the artful one to a straight exposure. He asked +his question abruptly.</p> + +<p>"I want to hear how Miss Linton is doing. I'm just back from +Washington—haven't heard for a week."</p> + +<p>Burns frowned. No physician likes to be questioned about his cases, +particularly if they are not progressing to suit him. But he answered, +in a sort of growl: "She's not doing."</p> + +<p>King looked startled. "You mean—not doing well?"</p> + +<p>"She's fighting for existence—and—slipping."</p> + +<p>"But—you haven't given her up?"</p> + +<p>Burns exploded with instant wrath. King might have known that question +would make him explode. "Given her up! Don't you know a red-headed fiend +like me better than that?"</p> + +<p>"I know you're a bulldog when you get your teeth in," admitted Jordan +King, looking decidedly unhappy and anxious. "If I'm just sure you've +got 'em in, that's enough."</p> + +<p>Burns grunted. The sound was significant.</p> + +<p>King ventured one more question, though Red Pepper's foot was on his +starter, and the engine had caught the spark and turned over. "If +there's anything I could do," he offered hurriedly and earnestly. +"Supply a special nurse, or anything—"</p> + +<p><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80"></a>Burns shook his head. "Two specials now, and half the staff interested. +It's up to Anne Linton and nobody else. If she can do the trick—she and +Nature—all right. If not—well—Thanks for letting go the car, Jord. +This happens to be my busy day."</p> + +<p>Jordan King looked after him, his heart uncomfortably heavy. Then he +stepped into his own car and drove away, taking his course down a side +street from which he could get a view of certain windows. They were wide +open to the May breeze and the sunshine, but no pots of daffodils or +other flowers stood on their empty sills. He knew it was useless to send +them now.</p> + +<p>"But if she does pull through," he said to himself between his teeth, +"I'll bring her such an armful of roses she can't see over the top of +'em. God send I get the chance!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3>SUSQUEHANNA</h3> + + +<p>Red Pepper Burns drove into the vine-covered old red barn behind his +house which served as his garage, and stopped his engine with an air of +finality.</p> + +<p>"Johnny," said he, addressing the young man who was accustomed to drive +with him—and for him when for any reason he preferred not to drive +himself, which was seldom—and who kept the car in the most careful +trim, "not for man or beast, angel or devil will I go out again +to-night."</p> + +<p>Johnny Carruthers grinned. "No, sir," he replied. "Not unless they +happen to want you," he added.</p> + +<p>"Not if they offer me a thousand dollars for the trip," growled his +master.</p> + +<p>"You would for a dead beat, though," suggested the devoted servant, who +by virtue of five years of service knew whereof he spoke, "if he'd +smashed his good-for-nothin' head."</p> + +<p>"Not if he'd smashed his whole blamed body—<a name="Page_82" id="Page_82"></a>so long as there was +another surgeon in the county who could do the job."</p> + +<p>"That's just the trouble," argued Johnny. "You'd think there wasn't."</p> + +<p>Red Pepper looked at him. "Johnny, you're an idiot!" he informed him. +Then he strode away toward the house.</p> + +<p>As he went into his office the telephone rang. The office was empty, for +it was dinner-time, and Miss Mathewson was having a day off duty on +account of her mother's illness. So, unhappily for the person at the +other end of the wire, the Doctor himself answered the ring. It had been +a hard day, following other hard days, and he was feeling intense +fatigue, devastating depression, and that unreasoning irritability which +is born of physical weariness and mental unrest.</p> + +<p>"Hello," shouted the victim of these disorders into the transmitter. +"What?... No, I can't.... What?... No. Get somebody else.... What?... I +can't, I say.... Yes, you can. Plenty of 'em.... What?... Absolutely +<i>no</i>! Good-bye!"</p> + +<p>"I ought to feel better after that," muttered Burns, slamming the +receiver on the hook. "But somehow I don't."</p> + +<p>In two minutes he was splashing in a hot bath, as always at the end of a +busy day. From the tub <a name="Page_83" id="Page_83"></a>he was summoned to the telephone, the upstairs +extension, in his own dressing room. With every red hair erect upon his +head after violent towelling, he answered the message which reached his +unwilling ears.</p> + +<p>"What's that? Worse? She isn't—it's all in her mind. Tell her she's all +right. I saw her an hour ago. What?... Well, that's all imagination, as +I've told her ten thousand times. There's absolutely nothing the matter +with her heart.... No, I'm not coming—she's not to be babied like +that.... No, I won't. Good-bye!"</p> + +<p>The door of the room softly opened. A knock had preceded the entrance of +Ellen, but Burns hadn't heard it. He eyed her defiantly.</p> + +<p>"Do you feel much, much happier now?" she asked with a merry look.</p> + +<p>"If I don't it's not the fault of the escape valve. I pulled it wide +open."</p> + +<p>"I heard the noise of the escaping steam." She came close and stood +beside him, where he sat, half dressed and ruddy in his bathrobe. He put +up both arms and held her, lifting his head for her kiss, which he +returned with interest.</p> + +<p>"That's the first nice thing that's happened to me to-day—since the one +I had when I left you this morning," he remarked. "I'm all in <a name="Page_84" id="Page_84"></a>to-night, +and ugly as a bear, as usual. I feel better, just this minute, with you +in my arms and a bath to the good, but I'm a beast just the same, and +you'd best take warning.... Oh, the—"</p> + +<p>For the telephone bell was ringing again. From the way he strode across +the floor in his bathrobe and slippers it was small wonder that the +walls trembled. His wife, watching him, felt a thrill of sympathy for +the unfortunate who was to get the full force of that concussion. With a +scowl on his brow he lifted the receiver, and his preliminary "Hello!" +was his deepest-throated growl. But then the scene changed. Red Pepper +listened, the scowl giving place to an expression of a very different +character. He asked a quick question or two, with something like a most +unaccustomed breathlessness in his voice, and then he said, in the +businesslike but kind way which characterized him when his sympathies +were roused:</p> + +<p>"I'll be there as quick as I can get there. Call Doctor Buller for me, +and let Doctor Grayson know I may want him."</p> + +<p>Rushing at the completion of his dressing he gave a hurried explanation, +in answer to his wife's anxious inquiry, "It isn't Anne Linton?"</p> + +<p>"It's worse, it's Jord King. He's had a bad accident—confound his +recklessness! I'm afraid <a name="Page_85" id="Page_85"></a>he's made a mess of it this time for fair, +though I can't be sure till I get there."</p> + +<p>"Where is he?" Ellen's face had turned pale.</p> + +<p>"At the hospital. His man Aleck is hurt, too. Call Johnny, please, and +have him bring the car around and go with me."</p> + +<p>Ellen flew, and five minutes later watched her husband gulp down a cup +of the strong coffee Cynthia always made him at such crises when, in +spite of fatigue, he must lose no time nor adequately reënforce his +physical energy with food.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm so sorry you couldn't rest to-night," she said as he set down +the cup and, pulling his hat over his eyes, picked up the heavy surgical +bags.</p> + +<p>"Couldn't, anyway, with the universe on my mind, so I might as well keep +going," was Burns's gruff reply, though the kiss he left on her lips was +a long one and spoke his appreciation of her tender comradeship.</p> + +<p>She did not see him again till morning, though she lay awake many hours. +He came in at daylight; she heard the car go in at the driveway, and, +rising hurriedly, was ready to meet him when he came into the living +room downstairs.</p> + +<p>"Up so early?" questioned Burns as he saw her. The next minute he had +folded her in one of those strong-armed embraces which speak of a glad +return to one whose life is a part of one's own. "I <a name="Page_86" id="Page_86"></a>wonder," he +murmured, with his cheek pressed to hers, "if a man ever came back to +sweeter arms than these!"</p> + +<p>But she knew, in spite of this greeting, that his heart was heavy. Her +own heart sank. But she waited, asking no questions. He would tell her +when he was ready.</p> + +<p>He drew her down upon the couch beside him and sat with his arm around +her. "No, I don't want to lie down just yet," he said. "I just want you. +I'm keeping you in suspense, I know; I oughtn't to do that. Jord's life +is all right, and he'll be himself again in time, but—well, I've lost +my nerve for a bit—I can't talk about it."</p> + +<p>His voice broke. By and by it steadied again; and, his weariness +partially lifted by the heartening little breakfast Ellen brought him on +a tray, he told her the story of the night:</p> + +<p>"Jord was coming in from the Coldtown Waterworks, forty miles out, late +for dinner and hustling to make up time. Aleck, the Kings' chauffeur, +was with him. They were coming in at a good clip, even for a back +street, probably twenty-five or thirty. There wasn't much on the street +except ahead, by the curb, a wagon, and coming toward him a big motor +truck. When he was fifty feet from the wagon a fellow stepped out from +behind it to cross the street. It was right under the arc <a name="Page_87" id="Page_87"></a>light, and +Jord recognized Franz—'Little Hungary' you know—with his fiddle under +his arm, crossing to go in at the stage door of the Victoria Theatre, +where he plays. The boy didn't see them at all.</p> + +<p>"Neither Jord nor Aleck can tell much about it yet, of course, but from +the little I got I know as well as if I had been there what happened. He +slammed on the brakes—it was the only thing he could do, with the motor +truck taking up half the narrow street. The pavement was wet—a shower +was just over. Of course she skidded completely around to the left, just +missing the truck, and when she hit the curb over she went. She jammed +Jord between the car and the ground, injuring his back pretty badly but +not permanently, as nearly as I can make out. But she crushed Aleck's +right arm so that—"</p> + +<p>He drew a long breath, a difficult breath, and Ellen, listening, cried +out against the thing she instantly felt it meant.</p> + +<p>"O Red! You don't mean—"</p> + +<p>He nodded. "I took it off, an hour afterward—at the shoulder."</p> + +<p>Ellen turned white, and in a moment more she was crying softly within +the shelter of her husband's arm. He sat with set lips, and eyes staring +at the empty fireplace before him. Presently he <a name="Page_88" id="Page_88"></a>spoke again, and his +voice was very low, as if he could not trust it:</p> + +<p>"Aleck was game. He was the gamest chap I ever saw. All he said when I +told him was, 'Go ahead, Doctor.' I never did a harder thing in all my +life. I suppose army surgeons get more or less used to it, but +somehow—when I knew what that arm meant to Aleck, and how an hour +before it had been a perfect thing, and now—"</p> + +<p>He did not try to tell her more just then, but later, when both were +steadied, he added a few more important details to the story:</p> + +<p>"Franz went to the hospital with them—wouldn't leave them—ran the risk +of losing his position. Do you know, Jord has been teaching that boy +English, evenings, and naturally Franz adores him. I suppose Jord would +have taken that skid for any blamed beggar who got in his way, but of +course it didn't take any force off the way he jammed on those brakes +when he saw it was a friend he was going to hit. And a friend he was +going to maim—pretty hard choice to make, wasn't it? But of course it +was sure death to Franz if he hit him, at that pace, so there was +nothing else to do but take the chance for himself and Aleck. Maybe you +can guess, though, how he feels about Aleck. One wouldn't think he knew +he'd been cruelly hurt himself."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89"></a>"Oh! I thought—"</p> + +<p>"Jord's back will give him a lot of trouble for a while, but his spine +isn't seriously injured, if I know my trade. Altogether—well—the +nurses have got a couple of interesting cases on their hands for a +while. No doubt Aleck will be well looked after. As for Jord—he'll be +so much the more helpless of the two for a while, I'm afraid he'll prove +a distraction that will demoralize the force."</p> + +<p>He smiled faintly for the first time, but his face sobered again +instantly.</p> + +<p>"Anne Linton's pretty weak, but she took a little nourishment sanely +this morning just before I came away. Miss Arden feels a trifle +encouraged. I confess this thing of Jord's has knocked the girl out of +my mind for the time being, though I shall get her back again fast +enough, if I don't find things going right when I see her. Well"—he +turned his wife's face toward him, with a hand against her cheek—"it's +all out now, and I'm eased a bit by the telling. I wish I could get +forty winks, just to make a break between last night and this morning."</p> + +<p>"You shall. Lie down and I'll put you to sleep."</p> + +<p>He did not think it possible, in spite of his exhaustion, but presently +under her quieting touch he was over the brink, greatly to Ellen's +relief.<a name="Page_90" id="Page_90"></a> Her heart contracted with love and sympathy as she watched his +face. It was a weary face, now in its relaxation, and there were heavy +shadows under the closed eyes. Every now and then a frown crossed the +broad brow, as if the sleeper were not wholly at ease, could not forget, +even in his dreams, what he had had to do a few hours ago. She thought +of young Aleck with his manly, smiling face, his pride in keeping Jordan +King's car as fine and efficient beneath its hood—mud-splashed though +it often was without—as he did the shining limousine he drove for Mrs. +Alexander King, Jordan's mother. She thought of what it must be to him +now to know that he was maimed for life. As for King himself, she knew +him well enough to understand how his own injuries would count for +little beside his distress in having had to deal the blow which had +crushed that strong young arm of Aleck's. Her heart ached for them +both—and even for poor Franz, weeping at having been the innocent cause +of all this havoc.</p> + +<p>Two hours' sleep did his wife secure for Burns before he woke, stoutly +avowing himself fit for anything again, and setting off, immediately +breakfast was over, for the place to which his thoughts had leaped with +his first return to consciousness.</p> + +<p>"Can't rest till I see old Jord. Did I tell you that he insisted on +Aleck's having the room next <a name="Page_91" id="Page_91"></a>his, precisely as big and airy as his own? +There's a door between, and when it's open they can see each other. When +I left Jord the door was open, and he was staring in at Aleck, who was +still sleeping off the anesthetic, and a big tear was running down +Jord's cheek. He can't stir himself, but that doesn't seem to bother him +any. He's going to suffer a lot of pain with his back, but he'll suffer +ten times more looking at that bandaged shoulder of Aleck's."</p> + +<hr class="fifty" /> + +<p>It was four days later that Ellen saw King. She was prepared to find +him, as Burns had called him, "game," but she had not known just all +that term means among men when it is applied to such a one as he. If he +had been receiving her after having suffered a bad wrench of the ankle +he could not have treated the occasion more simply.</p> + +<p>"This is mighty good of you," he said, reaching up a well-developed +right arm from his bed, where he lay flat on his back without so much as +a pillow beneath his head. His hair was carefully brushed, his bandages +were concealed, his lips were smiling, and altogether he was, except for +his prostrate position, no picture of an invalid.</p> + +<p>"I've just been waiting to come," she said, returning the firm pressure +of his hand with that of both her own.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92"></a>"And meanwhile you've kept me reminded of you by these wonderful +flowers," he said with a nod toward the ranks on ranks of roses which +crowded table and window sills.</p> + +<p>"Oh, but not all those!" she denied. "I might have known you would be +deluged with them. Daisies and buttercups out of the fields would have +been better."</p> + +<p>"No, because those you sent look like you. Doctor Burns won't grudge me +the pleasure of saying now what I like to his wife—and it's the first +time I've really dared tell you what I thought."</p> + +<p>"What a charming compliment! But I'm going to send you something much +more substantial now—good things to eat, and books to read, if I can +just find out what you like—and even games to play, if you care for +them."</p> + +<p>"I'll be delighted, if they're something Aleck and I can play together. +You see when that door is open we aren't far apart, and it won't be +long, Doctor Burns says, before he'll be walking in here to keep me +company—till he gets out."</p> + +<p>"He is doing well, I hear. I'm so glad."</p> + +<p>"Yes, that husky young constitution of his is telling finely—plus your +husband's surgery. My poor boy!" He shut his lips upon the words, and +kept them closely pressed together for an instant. "My word, Mrs. +Burns—he's the stuff that heroes <a name="Page_93" id="Page_93"></a>are made of! His living to earn for +the rest of his life—with one arm—and you'd think he'd lost the tip of +one finger. If ever I let that boy go out of my employ—why, he's worth +more as a shining example of pluck than other men are worth with two +good arms!"</p> + +<p>"I must go and see him—if he'd care to have me."</p> + +<p>"He'd take it as the honour of his life. He's crazy over the flowers you +sent him."</p> + +<p>"Would he care for books? And what sort? I'm going to bring both of you +books."</p> + +<p>"Stories of adventure will suit Aleck—the wilder the better. Odd +choice—for such a peaceable-looking fellow, isn't it? As for +me—something I'll have to work hard to listen to, something to keep an +edge on my mind. I've counted the cracks in the ceiling till I have a +map of them by heart. I've worked out a system by which I can drain that +ceiling country and raise crops there. There isn't much else in this +room that I can count or lay out—worse luck! So I've named all the +roses, and have wagers with myself as to which will fade first. I'm +betting on Susquehanna, that big red one, to outlast all the rest."</p> + +<hr class="fifty" /> + +<p>When Red Pepper looked in half an hour later, it was to find the door +open between the two rooms, <a name="Page_94" id="Page_94"></a>and his wife listening, smiling, to an +incident of the night just past, as told by first one patient and then +the other. The two young men might have been two comrades lying beside a +campfire, so gay was their jesting with each other, so light their +treatment of the wakeful hours both had spent.</p> + +<p>"No, there's nothing the matter with either of them," observed Burns, +looking from one bedside to the other. "Franz is the chap with the heavy +heart; these two are just enjoying a summer holiday. But I'm not going +to keep the communication open long at a time, as yet."</p> + +<p>He went in to see Aleck, closing the door again. When he returned he +took up a position at the foot of King's bed, regarding him in silence. +Ellen looked up at her husband. There was something in his face which +had not been there of late—a curiously bright look, as if a cloud were +lifted. She studied him intently, and when he returned the scrutiny she +raised her eyebrows in an interrogation. He nodded, smiling quizzically.</p> + +<p>"Jord," he said, "if you want to keep your secrets to yourself, beware +of letting any woman come within range. My wife has just read me as if I +were an open book in large black type."</p> + +<p>"Bound in scarlet and gold," added Ellen. "Tell us, Red. You really have +good news?"</p> + +<p>"The best. I am pretty confident Anne Linton <a name="Page_95" id="Page_95"></a>has turned the corner. I +hoped it yesterday, but wasn't sure enough to say so. Did you know that, +too?"</p> + +<p>"Of course. But you were in small type yesterday. To-day he who runs may +read. You would know it yourself, wouldn't you, Jordan?"</p> + +<p>The man in the bed studied the man who stood at its foot. The two +regarded each other as under peculiar circumstances men do who have a +strong bond of affection and confidence between them.</p> + +<p>"He's such a bluffer," said King. "I hadn't supposed anybody could tell +much about what he was thinking. But I do see he looks pretty jolly this +morning, and I don't imagine it's all bluff. I'm certainly glad to hear +Miss Linton is doing well."</p> + +<p>"Doing well isn't exactly the phrase even now," admitted Red Pepper. +"There are lots of things that can happen yet. But the wind and waves +have floated her little craft off the rocks, and the leaks in the boat +are stopped. If she doesn't spring any more, and the winds continue +favourable, we'll make port."</p> + +<p>Jordan King looked as happy as if he had been the brother of this +patient of Burns's, whom neither of them had known a month ago, and whom +one of them had seen but once.</p> + +<p>"That's great," he said. "I haven't dared to ask since I came here +myself, knowing how poor the <a name="Page_96" id="Page_96"></a>prospects were the last time I did ask. I +was afraid I should surely hear bad news. When can we begin to send her +flowers again? Couldn't I send some of mine? I'd like her to have +Susquehanna there, and Rappahannock—and I think Arapahoe and Apache +will run them pretty close on lasting. Would you mind taking them to her +when you go?" His eyes turned to Mrs. Burns.</p> + +<p>"I'd love to, but I shall not dare to tell her you are here, just yet. +She is very weak, isn't she, Red?"</p> + +<p>"As a starved pussy cat. The flowers won't hurt her, but we don't want +to rouse her sympathies as yet."</p> + +<p>"I should say not. Don't mention me; just take her the posies," +instructed King, his cheek showing a slight access of colour.</p> + +<p>"You won't know whether Susquehanna wins your wager or not," Ellen +reminded him as she obediently separated the indicated blooms, +magnificent great hothouse specimens with stems like pillars. That the +finest of all these roses, not excepting those she had sent herself, had +come from private greenhouses, she well knew. The Kings lived in the +centre of the wealthiest quarter of the city, though not themselves +possessed of more than moderate riches. Their name, however, was an old +and honoured one, Jordan himself <a name="Page_97" id="Page_97"></a>was a favourite, and none in the city +was too important to be glad to be admitted at his home.</p> + +<p>"Anything more I can do for you before I go?" inquired Burns of his +patient when Ellen had gone, smiling back at King from over the big +roses and promising to keep track of Susquehanna for him in her daily +visits.</p> + +<p>"Nothing, thank you. You did it all an hour ago, and left me more +comfortable than I expected to be just yet. I'm not sure whether it was +the dressing or the visit that did me the most good."</p> + +<p>"You're a mighty satisfactory sort of patient. That good clean blood of +yours is telling already in your recovery from shock. It tells in +another way, too."</p> + +<p>"What's that?"</p> + +<p>"Sheer pluck."</p> + +<p>King's eyelids fell. It meant much to him to stand well in the +estimation of this man, himself distinguished for the cool daring of his +work, his endurance of the hard drudgery of his profession as well as +the brilliant performance on occasion. "I'm glad you think so—Red +Pepper Burns," King answered daringly. Then, as the other laughed, he +added: "Do you know what would make me the most docile patient you could +ask?"</p> + +<p>"Docile doesn't seem just the word for you—but I'd be glad to know, in +case of emergency."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98"></a>"Let me call you that—the name your best friends have for you. It's a +bully name. I know I'm ten years younger—but—"</p> + +<p>"Good lack! Jordan King, call me anything you like! I'll appreciate it."</p> + +<p>"You've no idea how long I've wanted to do it—Red," vowed the younger +man, with the flush again creeping into his cheek.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you long ago?" Burns demanded. "Surely dignity's no +characteristic of mine. If Anne Linton can call me 'Red Head' on no +acquaintance at all—"</p> + +<p>"She didn't do that!" King looked a little as if he had received a blow.</p> + +<p>"Only when she was off her head, of course. She took me for a wildcat +once, poor child. No, no—when she was sane she addressed me very +properly. She's back on the old decorous ground now. Made me a beautiful +little speech this morning, informing me that I had to stop calling her +'little girl,' for she was twenty-four years old. As she looks about +fifteen at the present, and a starved little beggar at that, I found it +a bit difficult to begin on 'Miss Linton,' particularly as I have been +addressing her as 'Little Anne' all the time."</p> + +<p>"Starved?" King seemed to have paused at this significant word.</p> + +<p>"Oh, we'll soon fill her out again. She's really <a name="Page_99" id="Page_99"></a>not half so thin as +she might be under the old-style treatment. It strikes me you have a +good deal of interest in my patients, Jord. Shall I describe the rest of +them for you?"</p> + +<p>Burns looked mischievous, but King did not seem at all disturbed.</p> + +<p>"Naturally I am interested in a girl you made me bring to the hospital +myself. And at present—well—a fellow feeling, you know. I see how it +is myself now. I didn't then."</p> + +<p>"True enough. Well, I'll bring you daily bulletins from Miss Anne. And +when she's strong enough I'll break the news to her of your proximity. +Doubtless your respective nurses will spend their time carrying flowers +back and forth from one of you to the other."</p> + +<p>"More than likely," King admitted. "Anything to fill in the time. I'm +sorry I can't take her out in my car when she's ready. I've been +thinking, Doctor—Red," he went on hastily, "that there's got to be some +way for Aleck to drive that car in the future. I'm going to work out a +scheme while I lie here."</p> + +<p>"Work out anything. I'll prophesy right now that as soon as you get +fairly comfortable you'll think out more stuff while you're lying on +your back than you ever did in a given period of time before. It won't +be lost time at all; it'll be time gained. And <a name="Page_100" id="Page_100"></a>when you do get back on +your legs—no, don't ask me when that'll be, I can't tell nor any other +fellow—but when you do get back you'll make things fly as they never +did before—and that's going some."</p> + +<p>"You <i>are</i> a great bluffer, but I admit that I like the sound of it," +was King's parting speech as he watched Burns depart.</p> + +<p>On account of this latest interview he was able to bear up the better +under the immediately following visit of his mother, an +aristocratic-looking, sweet-faced but sad-eyed lady, who could not yet +be reconciled to that which had happened to her son, and who visited him +twice daily to bring hampers of fruit, food, and flowers, in quantity +sufficient to sustain half the patients in a near-by ward. She +invariably shed a few quiet tears over him which she tried vainly to +conceal, addressed him in a mournful tone, and in spite of his efforts +to cheer her managed to leave behind her after each visit an atmosphere +of depression which it took him some time and strength to overcome.</p> + +<p>"Poor mother, she can't help it," philosophized her son. "What stumps +me, though, is why one who takes life so hard should outlive a man like +my father, who was all that is brave and cheerful. Perhaps it took it +out of him to be always playing the game boldly against her fears. But +even so—give me the bluffers, like Red Pepper—and like<a name="Page_101" id="Page_101"></a> Mrs. Red. +Jove! but she's a lovely woman. No wonder he adores her. So do I—with +his leave. And so does Anne Linton, I should imagine. Poor little +girl—what does she look like, I wonder?"</p> + +<p>If he could have seen her at that moment, holding Susquehanna against +her hollow young cheek, the glowing flower making the white face a +pitiful contrast, he would have been even more touched than he could +have imagined. Also—he would have felt that his wager concerning +Susquehanna was likely to be lost. It is not conducive to the life of a +rose to be loved and caressed as this one was being. But since it was +the first of her flowers that Anne Linton had been able to take note of +and enjoy, it might have been considered a life—and a wager—well lost.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3>HEAVY LOCAL MAILS</h3> + + +<p>Anne Linton lifted her head ever so little from the allowed incline of +her pillow in the Good Samaritan Hospital. She peered anxiously at the +tray being borne toward her by Selina Arden, most scrupulously +conscientious of all trained nurses, and never more rigidly exact than +when the early diet of patients in convalescence was concerned.</p> + +<p>"Is that all?" murmured Anne in a tone of anguish.</p> + +<p>"All!" replied Miss Arden firmly. But she smiled, showing her perfect +white teeth—and showing also her sympathy by the tone in which she +added: "Poor child!"</p> + +<p>"Shall I never, never, never," asked the patient, hungrily surveying the +tray at close range, "have enough just to dull these pangs a little? Not +enough to satisfy me, of course, but just enough to take the edge off?"</p> + +<p>"Very soon now," replied Miss Arden cheerily, "you shall have a pretty +good-sized portion of <a name="Page_103" id="Page_103"></a>beefsteak, juicy and tender, and you shall eat it +all up—"</p> + +<p>"And leave not a wrack behind," moaned Anne Linton, closing her eyes. +"But you are wrong, Miss Arden—I shall not eat it, I shall <i>gulp</i> +it—the way a dog does. I always wondered why a dog has no manners about +eating. I know now. He is so hungry his eyes eat it first, so his mouth +has no chance. Well, I'm certainly thankful for the food on this tray. +It's awfully good—what there is of it."</p> + +<p>She consumed it, making the process as lingering as was consistent with +the ravaging appetite which was a real torture. When the last mouthful +had vanished she set her eyes upon the clock—the little travelling +clock which was Miss Arden's and which had ticked busily and cheerfully +through all those days of illness when Anne's eyes had never once lifted +to notice the passage of time.</p> + +<p>"I was so long about it," said the girl gleefully, "that now it's only +two hours and forty minutes to the next refreshment station. I expect I +can keep on living till then if I use all my will power."</p> + +<p>"And here's something to make you forget how long two hours and forty +minutes are."</p> + +<p>Miss Arden went to the door and, returning, laid suddenly in Anne's arms +a great, fragrant mass of white bloom, at the smell and touch of which +she <a name="Page_104" id="Page_104"></a>gave a half-smothered cry of rapture, and buried her face in the +midst of it. "White lilacs—oh, white lilacs! The dears—the loves! Oh, +where <i>did</i> they come from?"</p> + +<p>"There's a note that came with them," admitted Miss Arden presently, +when she had let the question go unanswered for some time, while Anne, +seeming to forget that she had asked it, smelled and smelled of the cool +white and green branches as if she could never have enough of them. Into +her eyes had leaped a strange look, as if some memory were connected +with these outdoor flowers which made them different for her from the +hothouse blooms, or even from the daffodils and tulips that had +alternated with the roses which had come often since her convalescence +began.</p> + +<p>Anne reached up an eager hand for the note, a look of surprise on her +face. Miss Arden, looking back at her, noted how each day was helping to +remove the pallor and wanness from that face. At the moment, under the +caress of the lilacs and the surprise of the impending note, it was +showing once more a decided touch of its former beauty. Also she was +wearing a little invalid's wrap of lace and pink silk, given her by Mrs. +Burns, and this helped the effect.</p> + +<p>Anne unfolded the note. Miss Arden went away with the empty tray, and +remained away <a name="Page_105" id="Page_105"></a>some time. Miss Arden, as has been said before, was a +most remarkable nurse.</p> + +<p>The note read thus:</p> + +<div class="blockquot">The Next Corridor, 10:30 A.M. + +<p> <span class="smcap">Dear Miss Linton</span>:</p> + +<p> The time has come, it seems to me, for two patients who have + nothing to do but while away the hours for a bit longer, to + help each other out. What do you say? I suppose you don't know + that I've been lying flat on my back now for a fortnight, + getting over a rather bad spill from my car. I'm pretty + comfortable now, thank you, so don't waste a particle of + sympathy; but the hours must certainly drag for you as they do + for me, and my idea is that we ought to establish some sort of + system of intercommunication. I have an awfully obliging + nurse, and a young man with a fiddle here besides, and I'd + like to send you a short musicale when you feel up to it. Are + you fond of music? I have a notion you are. Franz will come + and play for you whenever you say. But besides that I'd + awfully like to have a note from you as soon as you are able + to write. I'll answer it, you know—and then you'll answer + that, perhaps—and so the hours will go by. I know this is a + rather free-and-easy-sounding proposition from a perfect + stranger, as I suppose you think me, but circumstances do + alter cases, you know, and if our circumstances can't alter + our cases, then it's no good being laid up!</p> + +<p> Hearty congratulations on that raging appetite. You see Doctor + Burns is good enough to keep me informed as to how you come + on. You certainly seem to be coming on now. Please keep it up. + I shouldn't dare ask you to write to me if the Doctor hadn't + said you could—if you wouldn't do it enough to tire you. + So—I'm hoping.</p> + +<p style="text-align: right">Yours, under the same roof,</p> + +<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Jordan King.</span></p></div> + +<p><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106"></a>"Good morning!" said a beloved voice from the doorway. Anne looked up +eagerly from her letter.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mrs. Burns—good morning! And won't you please stand quite still +for a minute while I look at you?"</p> + +<p>Ellen laughed. To other people than Anne Linton she was always the +embodiment of quiet charm in her freshness of attire and air of general +daintiness. In the pale gray and white of her summer clothing, with a +spray of purple lilac tucked into her belt, she was a vision to rest the +eye upon. "You are looking ever so well yourself to-day," Ellen said as +she sat down close beside Anne, facing her. "Another week and you will +be showing us what you really look like."</p> + +<p>"The little pink cover-up does me as much good as anything," declared +Anne. "I never thought I could wear pink with my carroty hair. But Miss +Arden says I can wear anything you say I can, and I believe her."</p> + +<p>"Your hair is bronze, not carroty, and that apricot shade of pink tones +in with it beautifully. What a glorious mass of white lilacs! I never +saw any so fine."</p> + +<p>"They're wonderful. I insisted on keeping them right here, I'm so fond of +the fragrance. They came from Mr. King," said Anne frankly. "And a note +from him says he's here in the hospital with an in<a name="Page_107" id="Page_107"></a>jured back. I'm so +sorry. Please tell me how badly he is hurt."</p> + +<p>"He will have to be patient for some weeks longer, I believe, but there +is no permanent injury. Meanwhile, he is like any man confined, restless +for want of occupation. Still, he keeps his time pretty full." And Ellen +proceeded to recount the story of Franz, and of how Jordan King was +continuing here in the hospital to teach him to speak English, finding +him the quickest and most grateful of pupils.</p> + +<p>"How splendid of him! He's going to send Franz to play for me. I can't +think of anything—except beefsteak—I should like so much!" and Anne +laughed, her face all alight with interest. But the next instant it +sobered. "Mrs. Burns," she said, "there's something I want to say very +much, and so far the Doctor hasn't let me. But I'm quite strong enough +now to begin to make plans, and one of them is this: The minute I'm able +to leave the hospital I want to go to some inexpensive place where I can +stay without bothering anybody. You have all been so wonderful to me I +can never express my gratitude, but I'm beginning to feel—oh, can't you +guess how anxious I am to be taking care of myself again? And I want you +to know that I have quite money enough to do it until I can go on with +my work."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Burns looked at her. In the excitement of <a name="Page_108" id="Page_108"></a>talking the girl's face +looked rounder and of a better colour than it had yet shown, and her +eyes were glowing, eyes of such beauty as are not often seen. But for +all that, she seemed like some lovely child who could no more take care +of itself than could a newborn kitten. Ellen laid one hand on hers.</p> + +<p>"You are not to think about such things yet, dear," she said. "Do you +imagine we have not grown very fond of you, and would let you go off +into some place alone before you are fully yourself again? Not a bit of +it. As soon as you can leave here you are coming to me as my guest. And +when you are playing tennis with Bob, on our lawn, you may begin to talk +about plans for the future."</p> + +<p>Anne stared back at her, a strange expression on her face. "Oh, no!" she +breathed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes! You can't think how I am looking forward to it. Meanwhile—you +are not to tire yourself with talking. I only stopped for a minute, and +the Doctor is waiting by now. Good-bye, my dear." And before Anne could +protest she was gone, having learned, by experience, that the way to +terminate useless argument with the one who is not strong enough to be +allowed to argue is by making early escape.</p> + +<p>That afternoon, having recovered from the two surprises of the morning, +Anne asked for pencil and <a name="Page_109" id="Page_109"></a>paper. Miss Arden, supplying them, stipulated +that their use should cover but five minutes.</p> + +<p>"It is one of the last things we let patients do," she said, "though it +is the thing they all want to do first. There is nothing so tiring as +letter writing."</p> + +<p>"I'm not going to write a letter," Anne replied, "just a hail to a +fellow sufferer. Only I'm no sufferer, and I'm afraid he is."</p> + +<p>She wrote her note, and it was presently handed to Jordan King. He had +wondered very much what sort of answer he should have, feeling that +nothing could reveal the sort of person this girl was so surely as a +letter, no matter how short. He had been sure he recognized education in +her speech, breeding in her manner, high intelligence as well as beauty +in her face, but—well, the letter would reveal. And so it did, though +it was written in a rather shaky hand, in pencil, on one of Miss Arden's +hospital record blanks—of all things!</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><span class="smcap">Dear Mr. King</span>: + +<p> It is the most wonderful thing in the world to be sitting up + far enough to be able to write and tell you how sorry I am + that you are lying down. But Mrs. Burns assures me that you + are fast improving and that soon you will be about again. + Meanwhile you are turning your time of waiting to a glorious + account in teaching poor Franz to speak English. Surely he + must have been longing to speak it, so that he might tell you + the things in his heart—about that dreadful night. But I know + you don't want me to write of that, and I won't.</p> + +<p> <a name="Page_110" id="Page_110"></a>Of course I should care to have him play for me, and I hope + he may do it soon—to-morrow, perhaps. I wonder if he knows + the Schubert "<i>Frühlingstraum</i>"—how I should love to hear it! + As for your interesting plan for relieving the passing hours, + I should hardly be human if I did not respond to it! Only + please never write when you don't feel quite like it—and + neither will I.</p> + +<p> The white lilacs were even more beautiful than the roses and + the daffodils. There was a long row of white lilac trees at + one side of a garden I used to play in—I shall never, never + forget what that fragrance was like after a rain! And now that + my sun is shining again—after the rain—you may imagine what + those white lilacs breathe of to me.</p> + +<p style="text-align: right">With the best of good wishes,</p> + +<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Anne Linton.</span></p></div> + + +<p>Jordan King read this note through three times before he folded it back +into its original creases. Then he shut it away in a leather-bound +writing tablet which lay by his side. "Franz," he said, addressing the +youth who was at this hour of the day his sole attendant, "can you play +Schubert's '<i>Frühlingstraum</i>'?"</p> + +<p>He had to repeat this title several times, with varying accents, before +he succeeded in making it intelligible. But suddenly Franz leaped to an +understanding.</p> + +<p>"Yess—yess—yess—yess—sair," he responded joyously, and made a dive +for his violin case.</p> + +<p>"Softly, Franz," warned his master. As this was a word which had thus +far been often used in <a name="Page_111" id="Page_111"></a>his education, on account of the fact that the +hospital did not belong exclusively to King—strange as that might seem +to Franz who worshipped him—it was immediately comprehended. Without +raising the tones of his instrument, Franz was able presently to make +clear to King that the music he was asked to play was of the best at his +command.</p> + +<p>"No wonder she likes that," was King's inward comment. "It's a strange, +weird thing, yet beautiful in a haunting sort of way, I imagine, to a +girl like her, and I don't know but it would be to me if I heard it many +times—while I was smelling lilacs in the rain," he added, smiling to +himself.</p> + +<p>That hint of a garden had rather taken hold of his imagination. More +than likely, he said to himself, it had been her own garden—only she +would not tell him so lest she seem to try to convey an idea of former +prosperity. A different sort of girl would have said "our garden."</p> + +<hr class="fifty" /> + +<p>Next morning, at the time of Mrs. Burns's visit to the hospital, King +sent Franz to play for Miss Linton. With her breakfast tray had come his +second note telling her of this intention, so she had two hours of +anticipation—a great thing in the life of a convalescent. With every +bronze lock in shining order, with the little wrap of apricot pink silk +<a name="Page_112" id="Page_112"></a>and lace about her shoulders, with an extra pillow at her back, Miss +Anne Linton awaited the coming of the "Court Musician," as King had +called him.</p> + +<p>"It's a very good thing Jord can't see her at this minute," observed +Burns to his wife as he met her in the hall outside the door. "The +prettiest convalescent has less appeal for a doctor than a young woman +of less good looks in strapping health—naturally, for he gets quite +enough of illness and the signs thereof. But to a lusty chap like King +Miss Anne's present frail appearance would undoubtedly enlist his +chivalry. Those are some eyes of hers, eh?"</p> + +<p>"I think I have never seen more beautiful eyes," Ellen agreed heartily.</p> + +<p>Her husband laughed. "I have," he said, and went his way, having no time +for morning musicales.</p> + +<p>That afternoon Anne Linton, having had all her pillows removed and +having obediently lain still and silent for two long hours, was +permitted to sit up again and write a note to King to tell him of the +joy of the morning:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><span class="smcap">Dear Mr. King</span>: + +<p> It was as if the twilight were falling, with the stars coming + out one by one. By and by they were all shining, and I was on + a mountain top somewhere, with the wind blowing softly + <a name="Page_113" id="Page_113"></a>against my face. It was dark and I was all alone, but I + didn't mind, for I was strong, strong again, and I knew I + could run down by and by and be with people. Then a storm came + on, and I lifted my face to if and loved it, and when it died + away the stars were shining again between the clouds. + Somewhere a little bird was singing—I opened my eyes just + there, and your Franz was looking at me and smiling, and I + smiled back. He seemed so happy to be making me happy—for he + was, of course. After a while it was dawn—the loveliest dawn, + all flushed with pink and silver, and I couldn't keep my eyes + shut any more for looking at the musician's face. He is a real + musician, you know, and the music he makes comes out of his + soul.</p> + +<p> When it was all over and he and Mrs. Burns were gone, my tray + came in. This is a frightful confession, but I am not a real + musician; I merely love good music with some sort of + understanding of what it means to those who really care, as + Franz does. To me, after all the emotion, my tray looked like + a sort of solid rock that I could cling to. And I had a piece + of wonderful beefsteak—ah, now you are laughing! Never + mind—I'll show you the two scenes.</p></div> + +<p>Upon the second sheet was something which made Jordan King open his +eyes. There were two little drawings—the simplest of pencil sketches, +yet executed with a spirit and skill which astonished him. The first was +of Franz himself, done in a dozen lines. There was no attempt at a +portrait, yet somehow Franz was there, in the very set of the head, the +angle of the lifted brow, the pose of the body, most of all in the +indication of the smiling mouth, the drooping eyelids. The second +picture was a funny sketch of a big-eyed girl devouring <a name="Page_114" id="Page_114"></a>food from a +tray. Two lines made the pillows behind her, six outlined the tray, a +dozen more demonstrated plainly the famishing appetite with which the +girl was eating. It was all there—it was astonishing how it was all +there.</p> + +<p>"My word!" he said as he laid down the sheets—and took them up again, +"that's artist work, whether she knows it or not. She must know it, +though, for she must have had training. I wonder where and how."</p> + +<p>He called Miss Arden and showed her the sketches.</p> + +<p>"Dear me, but they're clever," she said. "They look like a child's +work—and yet they aren't."</p> + +<p>"I should say not," he declared very positively. "That sort of thing is +no child's work. That's what painters do when they're recording an +impression, and I've often looked in more wonder at such sketchy +outlines than at the finished product. To know how to get that +impression on paper so that it's unmistakable—I tell you that's +training and nothing else. I don't know enough about it to say it's +genius, too, yet I've had an artist friend tell me it cost him more to +learn to take the right sort of notes than to enlarge upon those notes +afterward."</p> + +<p>When he wrote to Anne next morning—he was not venturing to ask more of +her than one exchange <a name="Page_115" id="Page_115"></a>a day—he told her what he thought about those +sketches:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I've had that sheet pinned up at the foot of my bed ever since + it came, and I'm not yet tired of looking at it. You should + have seen Franz's face when I showed it to him. "Ze arteeste!" + he exclaimed, and laughed, and made eloquent gestures, by + means of which I judged he was trying to express you. He + looked as if he were trying to impress me with his own hair, + his eyes, his cheeks, his hands; but I knew well enough he + meant you. I gathered that he had been not ill pleased with + his visit to you, for he proposes another; in fact, I think he + would enjoy playing for you every day if you should care to + hear him so often. He does not much like to perform in the + wards, though he does it whenever I suggest it. He has + discovered that though they listen respectfully while he plays + his own beloved music, mostly they are happier when he gives + them a bit of American ragtime, or a popular song hit. His + distaste for that sort of thing is very funny. One would think + he had desecrated his beloved violin when he condescends to + it, for afterward he invariably gives it a special polishing + with the old silk handkerchief he keeps in the case—and Miss + Arden vows he washes his hands, too. Poor Franz! Your real + artist has a hard time of it in this prosaic world doesn't he?</p></div> + +<p>The note ended by saying boldly that King would like another sketch +sometime, and he even ventured to suggest that he would enjoy seeing a +picture of that row of white lilac trees at the edge of the garden where +Anne used to play. It was two days before he got this, and meanwhile a +box of water colours had come into <a name="Page_116" id="Page_116"></a>requisition. When the sheet of heavy +paper came to King he lay looking at it with eyes which sparkled.</p> + +<p>At first sight it was just a blur of blues and greens, with irregular +patches of white, and gay tiny dashes of strong colour, pinks and +purples and yellows. But when, as Anne had bidden him, he held it at +arm's length he saw it all—the garden with its box-bordered beds full +of tall yellow tulips and pink and white and purple hyacinths—it was +easy to see that this was what they were, even from the dots and dashes +of colour; the hedge—it was a real hedge of white lilac trees, against +a spring sky all scudding clouds of gray. Like the sketch of Franz, its +charm lay entirely in suggestion, not in detail, but was none the less +real for that.</p> + +<p>There was one thing which, to King's observant eyes, stood out plainly +from the little wash drawing. This garden was a garden of the rich, not +of the poor. Just how he knew it so well he could hardly have told, +after all, for there was no hint of house, or wall, or even +summer-house, sundial, terrace, or other significant sign. Yet it was +there, and he doubted if Anne Linton knew it was there, or meant to have +it so. Perhaps it was that lilac hedge which seemed to show so plainly +the hand of a gardener in the planting and tending. The <a name="Page_117" id="Page_117"></a>question +was—was it her own garden in which she had played, or the garden of her +father's employer? Had her father been that gardener, perchance? King +instantly rejected this possibility.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>WHITE LILACS</h3> + + +<p>Burns, coming in to see King one day when the exchange of letters had +been going on for nearly a fortnight, announced that he might soon be +moved to his own home.</p> + +<p>King stared at him. "I'm not absolutely certain that I want to go till I +can get about on my own feet," he said slowly.</p> + +<p>Burns nodded. "I know, but that will be some time yet, and your +mother—well, I've put her off as long as I could, but without lying to +her I can't say it would hurt you now to be taken home. And lying's not +my long suit."</p> + +<p>"Of course not. And I suppose I ought to go; it would be a comfort to my +mother. But—"</p> + +<p>He set his lips and gave no further hint of his unwillingness to go +where he would be at the mercy of the maternal fondness which would +overwhelm him with the attentions he did not want. Besides—there was +another reason why, since he must for the present be confined somewhere, +he was loath to leave the friendly walls where there was now so <a name="Page_119" id="Page_119"></a>much of +interest happening every day. Could he keep it happening at home? Not +without much difficulty, as he well foresaw.</p> + +<p>"Miss Linton's coming to us on Saturday," observed Burns carelessly, +strolling to the window with his hands in his pockets.</p> + +<p>"Is she? I didn't suppose she'd be strong enough just yet." King tried +to speak with equal carelessness, but the truth was that, with his life +bound, as it was at present, within the confines of this room, the +incidents of each day loomed large.</p> + +<p>"She's gaining remarkably fast. For all her apparent delicacy of +constitution when she came to us, I'm beginning to suspect that she's +the fortunate possessor of a good deal of vigour at the normal. She says +herself she was never ill before, and that's why she didn't give up +sooner—couldn't believe there was anything the matter. We can't make +her agree to stay with us a day longer than I say is a necessity for +safety."</p> + +<p>"Where does she want to go? Not back to that infernal book-agenting?" +There was a frown between King's well-marked brows.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I imagine that's what she intends. She's a very decided young +person, and there's not much use telling her what she must and must not +do. As for the book itself, it's pretty clever, my wife and Miss +Mathewson insist. They say the youngsters <a name="Page_120" id="Page_120"></a>of the neighbourhood are +crazy over it. Bob knows it by heart, and even the Little-Un studies the +pictures half an hour at a time. If children were her buyers she'd have +no trouble."</p> + +<p>"Have a look at those, will you?"</p> + +<p>King reached for a leather writing case on the table at his elbow, took +out a pile of sheets, and began to hand them over one by one to Burns.</p> + +<p>"What's this? Hullo! Do you mean to say she did this? Well, I like her +impudence!"</p> + +<p>"So do I," laughed King, looking past Burns's shoulder at a saucy sketch +of the big Doctor himself evidently laying down the law about something, +by every vigorous line of protest in his attitude and the thrust of his +chin. Underneath was written: "Absolutely not! Haven't I said so a +thousand times?"</p> + +<p>"'Wad some power—'" murmured Burns. "Well, she seems to have the +'power.' I am rather a thunderer, I suppose. What's this next? My wife! +Jolly! that's splendid. Hasn't she caught a graceful pose though? +Ellen's to the life. Selina Arden? That's good—that's very good. +There's your conscientious nurse for you. And this, of herself? Ha! She +hasn't flattered herself any. She may have looked like that at one time, +but not now—hardly."</p> + +<p>"She's looking pretty well again, is she?"</p> + +<p><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121"></a>"Both pretty and well. We don't starve our patients on an exclusively +liquid diet the way we used to, and they don't come out of typhoid +looking half so badly in consequence. And she's been rounding out every +day for the last two weeks in fine shape. She's a great little girl, and +as full of spirit as a gray squirrel. I'm beginning to believe she's a +bit older than I would believe at first; that mind of hers is no +schoolgirl's; it's pretty mature. She says frankly she's twenty-four, +though she doesn't look over nineteen."</p> + +<p>"Is there any reason why I can't see her for a bit of a visit if she +goes Saturday?" asked King straightforwardly. It was always a +characteristic of his to go straight to a point in any matter; intrigue +and diplomacy were not for him in affairs which concerned a girl any +more than in those which pertained to his profession. "You see we've +been entertaining each other with letters and things, and it would seem +a pity not to meet—especially if she'll be leaving town before I'm +about."</p> + +<p>There was a curiously wistful look in his face as he said this, which +Burns understood. All along King had said almost nothing about the +torture his present helplessness was to him, but his friend knew.</p> + +<p>"Of course she'll come; we'll see to that. She's <a name="Page_122" id="Page_122"></a>walking about a little +now, and by Saturday she can come down this corridor on her two small +feet."</p> + +<p>"See here—couldn't I sit up a bit to meet her?"</p> + +<p>"Not a sixteenth of a degree. You'll lie exactly as flat as you are now. +If it's any consolation I'll tell you that you look like a prostrate +man-angel seven feet long."</p> + +<p>"Thanks. I'd fire a pillow at you if I had one. I don't want to look +like an object for sympathy, that's all."</p> + +<p>Burns nodded understandingly. "Well, Jord," he said a moment later, +"will you go home on Saturday, too?"</p> + +<p>The two looked at each other. Then, "If you say so," King agreed.</p> + +<p>"All right. Then we'll get rid of two of our most interesting patients +on that happy day. Never mind—the mails will still carry—and Franz is +a faithful messenger. What's that, Miss Dwight? All right, I'll be +there." And he went out, with a gay nod and wave of the hand to the man +on the bed.</p> + +<p>This was on Monday. On Tuesday King offered his petition that Anne +Linton would pay him a visit before she left on Saturday. When the +answer came it warmed his heart more than anything he had yet had from +her:<a name="Page_123" id="Page_123"></a></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Of course I will come—only I want you to know that I shall be + dreadfully sorry to come walking, when you must still lie so + long on that poor back. Doctor Burns has told me how brave you + are, with all the pain you are still suffering. But I am + wonderfully glad to learn that he is so confident of your + complete recovery. Just to know that you can be your active + self again is wonderful when one thinks what might have + happened. I shall always remember you as you seemed to me the + day you brought me here. I was, of course, feeling pretty + limp, and the sight of you, in such splendid vigour, made me + intensely envious. And even though I see you now "unhorsed," I + shall not lose my first impression, because I know that by and + by you will be just like that again—looking and feeling as if + you were fit to conquer the world.</p></div> + +<p>It was the most personal note he had had from her, and he liked it very +much. He couldn't help hoping for more next day, and did his best to +secure it by the words he wrote in reply. But Wednesday's missive was +merely a merrily piquant description of the way she was trying her +returning strength by one expedition after another about her room. On +Thursday she sent him some very jolly sketches of her "packing up," and +on Friday she wrote hurriedly to say that she couldn't write, because +she was making little visits to other patients.</p> + +<hr class="fifty" /> + +<p>Jordan King had never been more exacting as to his dressing than on that +Saturday. He studied his face in the glass after an orderly had shaved +him, to make sure that the blue bloom it took but a few <a name="Page_124" id="Page_124"></a>hours to +acquire had been properly subdued. He insisted on a particular silk +shirt to wear under the loose black-silk lounging robe which enveloped +him, and in which he was to be allowed to-day to lie upon the bed +instead of in it. His hair had to be brushed and parted three separate +times before he was satisfied.</p> + +<p>"I didn't know I was such a fop," he said, laughing, as Miss Dwight +rallied him on his preparations for receiving the ladies. "But somehow +it seems to make a difference when a man lies on his back. They have him +at a disadvantage. Now if you'll just give me a perfectly good +handkerchief I'll consider that the reception committee is ready. Thank +you. It must be almost time for them, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>For a young man who usually spent comparatively little of his time in +attentions to members of the other sex, but who was accustomed, +nevertheless, to be entirely at his ease with them, King acknowledged to +himself that he felt a curious excitement mounting in his veins as the +light footsteps of his guests approached.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Burns came first into his line of vision, wearing white from head +to foot, for it was early June and the weather had grown suddenly to be +like that of midsummer. Behind her followed not the black figure King's +memory had persistently pictured, but one also clad in white—the very +simple <a name="Page_125" id="Page_125"></a>white of a plain linen suit, with a close little white hat drawn +over the bronze-red hair. Under this hat the eyes King remembered glowed +warmly, and now there was health in the face, which was so much more +charming than the one he recalled that for a moment he could hardly +believe the two the same. Yet—the profile, as she looked at Mrs. Burns, +who spoke first, was the one which had been stamped on his mind as one +not to be forgotten.</p> + +<p>She was looking at him now, and there was no pity in her bright +glance—he could not have borne to see it if it had been there. She came +straight up to the bed, her hand outstretched—her gloves were in the +other, as if she were on her way downstairs, as he presently found she +was. She spoke in a full, rich voice, very different from the weary one +he had heard before.</p> + +<p>"Do you know me?" she asked, smiling.</p> + +<p>"Almost I don't. Have you really been ill, or did you make it all up?"</p> + +<p>"I'm beginning to believe I did. I feel myself as if it must be all +dream. How glad I am to find you able to be dressed. Doctor Burns says +you will go home to-day, too."</p> + +<p>"This evening, I believe. I thought you were not going till then +either."</p> + +<p>"This very hour." She glanced at Mrs. Burns. "My good fairy begged that +I might go early, be<a name="Page_126" id="Page_126"></a>cause it is her little son's birthday. I am to be +at a real party; think of that!"</p> + +<p>"The Little-Un's or Bob's?" King asked his other visitor.</p> + +<p>Bob was an adopted child, taken by Burns before his marriage, but the +little Chester's parents made no difference between them, and a birthday +celebration for the older boy was sure to be quite as much of an +occasion as for the two-year-old.</p> + +<p>"Bob's," Mrs. Burns explained. "He is ten; we can't believe it. And he +has set his heart on having Miss Linton at home for his party. He has +read her little book almost out of its covers, and she has been doing +some place-cards for his guests—the prettiest things!" Ellen opened a +small package she was carrying and showed King the cards.</p> + +<p>He gazed at them approvingly. "They're the jolliest I ever saw; the +youngsters will be crazy over them. For a convalescent it strikes me +Miss Linton has been the busiest known to the hospital."</p> + +<p>"You, yourself, have kept me rather busy, Mr. King," the girl observed.</p> + +<p>"So I have. I'm wondering what I'm to do when you are at Doctor Burns's +and I at home."</p> + +<p>She smiled. "I shall be there only a week if I keep on gaining as fast +as I am now."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127"></a>"A fortnight," interpolated Mrs. Burns, "is the earliest possible date +of your leaving us. And not then unless we think you fit."</p> + +<p>"Did you ever know of such kindness?" Anne Linton asked softly of King. +"To a perfect stranger?"</p> + +<p>He nodded. "Nothing you could tell me of their kindness could surprise +me. About that fortnight—would it be asking a great deal of you to keep +on sending me that daily note?"</p> + +<p>"Isn't there a telephone in your own room at home?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes—how did you know?"</p> + +<p>"I guessed it. Wouldn't a little telephone talk do quite as well—or +better—than a letter?"</p> + +<p>"It would be very nice," admitted King. "But I should hate to do without +the letter. The days are each a month long at present, you know, and +each hour is equal to twenty-four. Make it a letter, too, will you, +please?"</p> + +<p>Miss Linton looked at Mrs. Burns. "Do you think circumstances still +alter cases?" she inquired.</p> + +<p>Her profile, as King caught it again, struck him as a perfect outline. +To think of this girl starting out again, travelling alone, selling +books from door to door!</p> + +<p>"I think you will be quite warranted in being <a name="Page_128" id="Page_128"></a>very good to Mr. +King—while his hours drag as he describes," Ellen assented cordially.</p> + +<p>"As soon as I can sit up at any sort of decent angle I can do a lot of +work on paper," King asserted. "Then I'll make the time fly. +Meanwhile—it's all right."</p> + +<p>They talked together for a little, then King sent for Franz, who came +and played superbly, his eager eyes oftenest on Jordan King, like those +of an adoring and highly intelligent dog. Anne watched Franz, and King +watched Anne. Mrs. Burns, seeming to watch nobody, noted with +affectionate and somewhat concerned interest the apparent trend of the +whole situation. She could not help thinking, rather dubiously, of Mrs. +Alexander King, Jordan's mother.</p> + +<p>And, as things happen, it was just as Franz laid down his bow, after a +brilliant rendering of a great concerto, that Mrs. Alexander King came +in. She entered noiselessly, a slender, tall, black-veiled figure, as +scrupulously attired in her conventional deep mourning as if it were not +hot June weather, when some lightening of her sombre garb would have +seemed not only rational but kind to those who must observe her.</p> + +<p>"Oh, mother!" King exclaimed. "In all this heat? I didn't expect you. +I'm afraid you ought not to have come."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129"></a>She bent over him. "The heat has nothing to do with my feelings toward +my son. I couldn't neglect you, dear."</p> + +<p>She greeted Ellen cordially, who presented Miss Linton. King lost +nothing of his mother's polite scrutiny of the girl, who bore it without +the slightest sign of recognizing it beyond the lowering of her lashes +after the first long look of the tall lady had continued a trifle beyond +the usual limit. Book agent though she might be, Miss Linton's manner +was faultless, a fact King noted with curious pride in his new +friend—whom, though he himself was meeting her for but the second time, +he somehow wanted to stand any social test which might be put upon her. +And he well knew that his lady mother could apply such tests if anybody +could.</p> + +<p>In his heart he was saying that it seemed hard luck, he must say +good-bye to Anne Linton in that mother's presence. There was small +chance to make it a leave-taking of even ordinary good fellowship +beneath that dignified, quietly appraising eye, to say nothing of +endowing it with a quality which should in some measure compensate for +the fact that it might be a parting for a long time to come. However +much or little the exchange of notes during these last weeks might have +come to mean to Jordan King, aside from the diversion they had offered +to one sorely oppressed of mind and <a name="Page_130" id="Page_130"></a>body, he resented being now forced +to those restrained phrases of farewell which he well knew were the only +ones that would commend him to his mother's approval.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Burns and Miss Linton rose to go, summoned by Red Pepper himself, +who was to take them. In the momentary surge of greeting and small talk +which ensued, King surreptitiously beckoned Anne near. He looked up with +the direct gaze of the man who intends to make the most of the little +that Fate sends him.</p> + +<p>"Letters are interesting things, aren't they?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Very. And when they are written by a man lying on his back, who doesn't +know when he is down, they are stimulating things," she answered; and +there was that in the low tone of her voice and the look of her eyes +which was as if she had pinned a medal for gallantry on the breast of +the black silk robe.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Alexander King looked at her son—and moved nearer. She addressed +Anne. "I am more than glad to see, Miss Linton," said she, "that you are +fully recovered. Please let me wish you much success in your work. I +suppose we shall not see you again after you leave Mrs. Burns."</p> + +<p>"No, Mrs. King," responded Anne's voice composedly. "Thank you for that +very kind wish."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131"></a>She turned to the prostrate one once more. She put her hand in his, and +he held it fast for an instant, and, in spite of his mother's gaze, it +was an appreciable instant longer than formality called for.</p> + +<p>"I shall hope to see you again," he said distinctly, and the usual +phrase acquired a meaning it does not always possess.</p> + +<p>Then they were gone, and he had only the remembrance of Anne's parting +look, veiled and maidenly, but the comprehending look of a real friend +none the less.</p> + +<p>"My dear boy, you must be quite worn out with all this company in this +exhausting weather," murmured Mrs. King, laying a cool hand on a +decidedly hot brow.</p> + +<p>The brow moved beneath her hand, on account of a contraction of the +smooth forehead, as if with pain. "I really hadn't noticed the weather, +mother," replied her son's voice with some constraint in it.</p> + +<p>"You must rest now, dear. People who are perfectly well themselves are +often most inconsiderate of an invalid, quite without intention, of +course."</p> + +<p>"If I never receive any less consideration than I have had here, I shall +do very well for the rest of my life."</p> + +<p>"I know; they have all been very kind. But I <a name="Page_132" id="Page_132"></a>shall be so relieved when +I can have you at home, where you will not feel obliged to have other +patients on your mind. In your condition it is too much to expect."</p> + +<p>Jordan King was a good son, and he loved his mother deeply. But there +were moments when, as now, if he could have laid a kind but firm hand +upon her handsome, emotional mouth, he would have been delighted to do +so.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3>EXPERT DIAGNOSIS</h3> + + +<p>"What would you give for a drive with me this morning?" Burns surveyed +his patient, now dressed and downstairs upon a pillared rear porch, +wistfulness in his eyes but determination on his lips.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. We may as well try what that back will stand. Most of the drive +will be sitting still in front of houses, anyhow, and in your plaster +jacket you're pretty safe from injury."</p> + +<p>"Thank heaven!" murmured Jordan King fervently.</p> + +<p>Two minutes later he was beside Burns in the Doctor's car, staring +eagerly ahead, lifting his hat now and then as some one gave him +interested greeting from passing motor. More than once Burns was obliged +to bring his car to a short standstill, so that some delighted friend +might grasp King's hand and tell him how good it seemed to see him out. +With one and all the young man was very blithe, though he let them do +most of the <a name="Page_134" id="Page_134"></a>talking. They all told him heartily that he was looking +wonderfully well, while they ignored with the understanding of the +intelligent certain signs which spoke of physical and mental strain.</p> + +<p>"Your friends," Burns remarked as they went on after one particularly +pleasant encounter, "seem to belong to the class who possess brains. I +wish it were a larger class. Every day I find some patient suffering +from depression caused by fool comments from some well-meaning +acquaintance."</p> + +<p>"I've had a few of those, too," King acknowledged.</p> + +<p>"I'll wager you have. Well, among a certain class of people there seems +to be an idea that you can't show real sympathy without telling the +victim that he's looking very ill, and that you have known several such +cases which didn't recover. I have one little woman on my list who would +have been well long ago if she hadn't had so many loving friends to +impress her with the idea that her case was desperate. I talk Dutch to +such people now and then, when I get the chance, but it doesn't do much +good. Sometimes I get so thundering mad I can't stand it, and then I rip +out something that makes me a lasting enemy."</p> + +<p>"You get some comfort out of the explosion, anyhow," King commented, +with a glance at the strong profile beside him. "Besides, you may do +<a name="Page_135" id="Page_135"></a>more good than you know. Anybody who had had a good dressing down from +you once wouldn't be likely to forget it in a hurry."</p> + +<p>Burns laughed at this, as they stopped in front of a house. King had a +half-hour wait while his friend was inside. The car stood in heavy +shade, and he was very comfortable. He took a letter from his pocket as +he sat, a letter which looked as if it had been many times unfolded, and +read it once more, his face very sober as his eyes followed the familiar +lines:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><span class="smcap">Dear Mr. King</span>: + +<p> I was very, very sorry to go away without seeing you to say + good-bye after our interesting correspondence. Mrs. Burns and + I had such a pleasant visit with your mother, in your absence, + that we felt rewarded for our call, and it was good to know + that you could be out, yet of course we were very + disappointed. I do hope that all will go well with you, and + that very rapidly, for I can guess how eager you are to be at + work.</p> + +<p> Of course once I am off on my travels I shall have no time for + letters. No, that isn't quite frank, is it? Well, I will be + truthful and say honestly that I am sure it is not best that I + should keep on writing. I am glad if the letters have, as you + say, helped you through the worst of the siege; they surely + have helped me. But now—our ways part. Sometime I may give + you a hail from somewhere—when I am lonely and longing to + know how you get on. And sometime I may be back at my old + home. But wherever I am I shall never forget you, Jordan King, + for you have put something into my life which was not there + before and I am the better for it. As for you—<a name="Page_136" id="Page_136"></a>your life will + not be one whit the less big and efficient for this trying + experience; it will be bigger, I think, and finer. I am glad, + glad I have known you.</p> + +<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Anne Linton.</span></p></div> + +<p>For the hundredth time King felt his heart sink as he thought of that +prevented last interview. His mother had prevented it. It was perfectly +true that he was out, and away from home—out in a wheeled chair, which +had been pushed by Franz through a gap in the hedge between the Kings' +lawn and the Wentworths' next door. Just on the other side of that hedge +the chair had paused, where Sally Wentworth, his friend of long +standing, was serving tea to a little group of young people, all +intimates and all delighted to have the invalid once more in their +midst. Under the group of great copper beeches which made of that corner +of the Wentworth lawn a summer drawing room, King had sat in his chair +drinking tea and listening to gay chatter—and wondering why he had not +been able to get Anne Linton on the telephone so far that day. And at +that very time, so he now bitterly reflected, she and Mrs. Burns had +made their call upon him, only to be told by Mrs. King that he was +"out."</p> + +<p>His mother was unquestionably a lady, and she had told the truth; he +could not conceive of her doing otherwise. He knew that she undoubtedly, +<a name="Page_137" id="Page_137"></a>quite as Anne had said, had made the call a pleasant one. But she had +known that he was within a stone's throw of the house, and that he would +be bitterly disappointed not to be summoned. She had not mentioned to +him the fact of the call at all until next day—when Anne Linton had +been gone a full two hours upon her train. Then, when he had called up +Mrs. Burns, in a fever of haste to learn what had happened and what +there might yet be a chance of happening, he had discovered that Ellen +herself had tried three times to get him, upon the telephone, and had at +last realized—though this she did not say—that it was not intended +that she should.</p> + +<p>King understood his mother perfectly. She would scorn directly to +deceive him, yet to intrigue quietly but effectively against him in such +a case as this she would consider only her duty. She had seen clearly +his interest in the stranger, unintroduced and unvouched for, taken in +by kind people in an emergency, and though showing unquestionable marks +of breeding, none the less a stranger. She had feared for him, in his +present vulnerable condition; and she had done her part in preventing +that final parting which might have contained elements of danger. That +was all there was to it.</p> + +<p>For the present King was helpless, and there could be no possible use in +reproaching his mother <a name="Page_138" id="Page_138"></a>for her action—or lack of action. Once let him +get up on his feet, his own master once more—then it would be of use to +talk. And talk he would some day. Also he would act. Meanwhile—</p> + +<p>Red Pepper Burns came out of the house and scrutinized his friend and +patient closely as he approached. "Want to go on, or shall I take you +home?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"Take me on—anywhere—everywhere! Something inside will break loose if +you don't." King spoke with a smothered note of irritation new to him in +Burns's experience.</p> + +<p>"You've about reached the limit, have you?" The question was +straightforward, matter-of-fact in tone, but King knew the sympathy +behind it.</p> + +<p>"I rather have," the young man admitted. "I'm ashamed to own it."</p> + +<p>"You needn't be. It's a wonder you haven't reached it sooner; I should +have. Well, if you stand this drive pretty well to-day you ought to come +on fast. With that back, you may be thankful you're getting off as +easily as you are."</p> + +<p>"I am thankful—everlastingly thankful. It's just—"</p> + +<p>"I know. Blow off some of that steam; it won't hurt you. Here we are on +the straight road. I'll open up and give you a taste of what poor Henley +felt the first time his crippled body and his big, <a name="Page_139" id="Page_139"></a>uncrippled spirit +tasted the delight of 'Speed.' Remember?"</p> + +<p>"Indeed I do. Oh, I'm not complaining. You understand that, Red?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I understand—absolutely. And I understand that you need just +what I say—to blow off a lot of steam. Hurt you or not, I'm going to +let loose for a couple of miles and blow it off for you."</p> + +<p>In silence, broken only by the low song of the motor as it voiced its +joy in the widening license to show its power, the two men took the wind +in their faces as the car shot down the road, at the moment a clear +highway for them. King had snatched off his hat, and his dark hair blew +wildly about his forehead, while his eyes watched the way as intently as +if he had been driving himself, though his body hardly tensed, so +complete was his confidence in the steady hands on the wheel. Faster and +faster flew the car, until the speed indicator touched a mark seldom +passed by King himself at his most reckless moments. His lips, set at +first, broke into a smile as the pointing needle circled the dial, and +his eyes, if any could have seen them, would have told the relief there +was for him in escape by flight, though only temporary, from the +grinding pull of monotony and disablement.</p> + +<p>At the turn ahead appeared obstruction, and<a name="Page_140" id="Page_140"></a> Burns was obliged to begin +slowing down. When the car was again at its ordinary by no means slow +pace, King spoke:</p> + +<p>"Bless you for a mind reader! That was bully, and blew away a lot of +distemper. If you'll just do it again going back I'll submit to the +afternoon of a clam in a bed of mud."</p> + +<p>"Good. We'll beat that record going back, if we break the speedometer. +Racing with time isn't supposed to be the game for a convalescent, but +I'm inclined to think it's the dose you need, just the same. I expect, +Jord, that the first time you pull on a pair of rubber boots and go to +climbing around a big concrete dam somewhere your heart will break for +joy."</p> + +<p>"My heart will stand anything, so that it's action."</p> + +<p>"Will it? I thought it might be a bit damaged. It's had a good deal of +reaction to stand lately, I'm afraid."</p> + +<p>There was silence for a minute, then King spoke:</p> + +<p>"Red, you're a wizard."</p> + +<p>"Not much of a one. It doesn't take extraordinary powers of penetration +to guess that a flame applied to a bundle of kindling will cause a fire. +And when you keep piling on the fuel something's likely to get burned."</p> + +<p>"Did I pile on the fuel?"</p> + +<p><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141"></a>"You sure did. If there had been gunpowder under the kindling you could +have expected an explosion—and a wreck."</p> + +<p>"There's no wreck."</p> + +<p>"No? I thought there might be—somewhere."</p> + +<p>King spoke quickly. "Do you think I carried it too far?"</p> + +<p>"I think you carried it some distance—for an invalid's diversion."</p> + +<p>The young man flushed hotly. "I was genuinely interested and I saw no +harm. If there's any harm done it's to myself, and I can stand that. I'm +not conceited enough to imagine that a broken-backed cripple could make +any lasting impression."</p> + +<p>Burns turned and surveyed his companion with some amusement. "Do you +consider that a description of yourself?"</p> + +<p>"I certainly do." Jordan King's strong young jaw took on a grim +expression.</p> + +<p>"Know this then"—Burns spoke deliberately—"there's not a sane girl who +liked you well enough before your accident to marry you who wouldn't +marry you now."</p> + +<p>"That's absurd. Women want men, not cripples."</p> + +<p>"You're no cripple. Stop using that term."</p> + +<p>"What else? A man condemned to wear a <a name="Page_142" id="Page_142"></a>plaster jacket for at least a +year." King evidently did his best not to speak bitterly.</p> + +<p>"Bosh! Suppose the same thing happened to me. Would you look on me +askance for the rest of my days, no matter what man's job I kept on +tackling? Besides, the plaster jacket's only a precaution. You wouldn't +disintegrate without it."</p> + +<p>King looked at Red Pepper Burns and smiled in spite of himself. "I'm +glad to hear that, I'm sure. As for looking at you askance—you are you, +R.P. Burns."</p> + +<p>"Apply the same logic to yourself. You are you, and will continue to be +you, plus some assets you haven't had occasion to acquire before in the +way of dogged endurance, control of mind, and such-like qualities, bred +of need for them. You will be more to us all than you ever were, and +that's saying something. And the back's going to be a perfectly good +back; give it time. As for—if you don't mind my saying it—that +invalid's diversion, I don't suppose it's hurt you any. What I'm +concerned for is the hurt it may have done somebody else. I don't need +to tell you that it wasn't possible for Ellen and me to have that little +girl on our hearts all that time and not get mightily interested in her. +She's the real thing, too, we're convinced, and we care a good deal what +happens to her next."</p> + +<p>Jordan King drew a deep breath. "So do I."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143"></a>Burns gave him a quick look. "That's good. But you let her go away +without making sure of keeping any hold on her. You don't know where she +is now."</p> + +<p>King shot him a return look. "That wasn't my fault. That was hard luck."</p> + +<p>"I don't think much of luck. Get around it."</p> + +<p>"I'll do my best, I promise you. But I wish you'd tell me—"</p> + +<p>"Yes?"</p> + +<p>"—why you should think I had done her any harm. Heaven knows I wouldn't +do that for my right arm!"</p> + +<p>"She didn't make a sign—not one—of any injury, I assure you. She's a +gallant little person, if ever there was one—and a thoroughbred, though +she may be as poor as a church mouse. No, I should never have guessed +it. She went away with all sails set and the flags flying. All I know is +what my wife says."</p> + +<p>"Please tell me."</p> + +<p>"I'm not sure it will be good for you." Burns smiled as he drew up +beside a house. "However—if you will have it—she says Miss Anne Linton +took away with her every one of your numerous letters, notes, and even +calling cards which had been sent with flowers. She also took a halftone +snapshot of you out at the Coldtown dam, cut from a news<a name="Page_144" id="Page_144"></a>paper, +published the Sunday after your accident. The sun was in your eyes and +you were scowling like a fiend; it was the worst picture of you +conceivable."</p> + +<p>"Girls do those things, I suppose," murmured King with a rising colour.</p> + +<p>"Granted. And now and then one does it for a purpose which we won't +consider. But a girl of the type we feel sure Miss Linton to be +carefully destroys all such things from men she doesn't care +for—particularly if she has started on a trip and is travelling light. +Of course she may have fooled us all and be the cleverest little +adventuress ever heard of. But I'd stake a good deal on Ellen's +judgment. Women don't fool women much, you know, whatever they do with +men."</p> + +<p>He disappeared into a small brown house, and King was left once more +with his own thoughts. When Burns came out they drove on again with +little attempt at conversation, for Burns's calls were not far apart. +King presently began to find himself growing weary, and sat very quietly +in his seat during the Doctor's absences, experiencing, as he had done +many times of late, a sense of intense contempt for himself because of +his own physical weakness. In all his sturdy life he had never known +what it was to feel not up to doing whatever there might be to be done. +Fatigue he had known, the <a name="Page_145" id="Page_145"></a>healthy and not unpleasant fatigue which +follows vigorous and prolonged labour, but never weakness or pain, +either of body or of mind. Now he was suffering both.</p> + +<p>"Had about enough?" Burns inquired as he returned to the car for the +eighth time. "Shall I take you home?"</p> + +<p>"I'm all right."</p> + +<p>Burns gave him a sharp glance. "To be sure you are. But we'll go home +nevertheless. The rest of my work is at the hospital anyhow."</p> + +<p>As they were approaching the long stretch of straight road to which King +had looked forward an hour ago, but which he was disgusted to find +himself actually rather dreading now, a great closed car of luxurious +type, and bearing upon its top considerable travelling luggage, slowed +down as it neared, and a liveried chauffeur held up a detaining hand. +Burns stopped to answer a series of questions as to the best route +toward a neighbouring city. There were matters of road mending and +detours to be made plain to the inquirers, so the detention occupied a +full five minutes, during which the chauffeur got down and came to +Burns's side with a road map, with which the two wrestled after the +fashion usually made necessary by such aids to travel.</p> + +<p>During this period Jordan King underwent a dis<a name="Page_146" id="Page_146"></a>turbing experience. +Looking up with his usual keen glance, one trained to observe whatever +might be before it, he took in at a sweep the nature of the party in the +big car. That it was a rich man's car, and that its occupants were those +who naturally belonged in it, there was no question. From the owner +himself, an aristocrat who looked the part, as not all aristocrats do, +to those who were presumably his wife, his son, and daughters, all were +of the same type. Simply dressed as if for a long journey, they yet +diffused that aroma of luxury which cannot be concealed.</p> + +<p>The presumable son, a tall, hawk-nosed young man who sat beside the +chauffeur, turned to speak to those inside, and King's glance followed +his. He thus caught sight of a profile next the open window and close by +him. He stared at it, his heart suddenly standing still. Who was this +girl with the bronze-red hair, the perfect outline of nose and mouth and +chin, the sea-shell colouring? Even as he stared she turned her head, +and her eyes looked straight into his.</p> + +<p>He had seen Miss Anne Linton only twice, and on the two occasions she +had seemed to him like two entirely different girls. But this girl—was +she not that one who had come to visit him in his room at the hospital, +full of returning health and therefore of waxing beauty and vigour?</p> + +<p><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147"></a>For one instant he was sure it was she, no matter how strange it was +that she should be here, in this rich man's car—unless—But he had no +time to think it out before he was overwhelmed by the indubitable +evidence that, whoever this girl was, she did not know him. Her +eyes—apparently the same wonderful eyes which he could now never +forget—looked into his without a sign of recognition, and her +colour—the colour of radiantly blooming youth—did not change +perceptibly under his gaze. And after that one glance, in which she +seemed to survey him closely, after the manner of girls, as if he were +an interesting specimen, her eyes travelled to Red Pepper Burns and +rested lightly on him, as if he, too, were a person of but passing +significance to the motor traveller looking for diversion after many +dusty miles of more or less monotonous sights.</p> + +<p>King continued to gaze at her with a steadiness somewhat indefensible +except as one considers that all motorists, meeting on the highway, are +accustomed to take note of one another as comrades of the road. He was +not conscious that the other young people in the car also regarded him +with eyes of interest, and if he had he would not have realized just +why. His handsome, alert face, its outlines slightly sharpened by his +late experiences, his well-dressed, stalwart figure, carried no hint of +the odious plaster jacket which to his own think<a name="Page_148" id="Page_148"></a>ing put him outside the +pale of interest for any one.</p> + +<p>But it could not be Anne Linton; of course it could not! What should a +poor little book agent be doing here in a rich man's car—unless she +were in his employ? And somehow the fact that this girl was not in any +man's employ was established by the manner in which the young man on the +front seat spoke to her, as he now did, plainly heard by King. Though +all he said was some laughing, more or less witty thing about this being +the nineteenth time, by actual count since breakfast, that a question of +roads and routes had arisen, he spoke as to an equal in social status, +and also—this was plainer yet—as to one on whom he had a more than +ordinary claim. And King listened for her answer—surely he would know +her voice if she spoke? One may distrust the evidence of one's eyes when +it comes to a matter of identity, but one's ears are not to be deceived.</p> + +<p>But King's ears, stretched though they might be, metaphorically +speaking, like those of a mule, to catch the sound of that voice, caught +nothing. She replied to the young man on the front seat only by a nod +and a smile. Then, as the chauffeur began to fold up his road map, +thanking Burns for his careful directions, and both cars were on the +point of starting, the object of King's heart-arresting <a name="Page_149" id="Page_149"></a>scrutiny looked +at him once again. Her straight gaze, out of such eyes as he had never +seen but on those two occasions, met his without flinching—a long, +steady, level look, which lasted until, under Burns's impatient hand, +the smaller car got under motion and began to move. Even then, though +she had to turn her head a little, she let him hold her gaze—as, of +course, he was nothing loath to do, being intensely and increasingly +stirred by the encounter with its baffling hint of mystery. Indeed, she +let him hold that gaze until it was not possible for her longer to +maintain her share of the exchange without twisting about in the car. As +for King, he did not scruple to twist, as far as his back would let him, +until he had lost those eyes from his view.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h3>JORDAN IS A MAN</h3> + + +<p>When King turned back again to face the front his heart was thumping +prodigiously. Almost he was certain it had been Anne Linton; yet the +explanation—if there were one—was not to be imagined. And if it had +been Anne Linton, why should she have refused to know him? There could +have been little difficulty for her in identifying him, even though she +had seen him last lying flat on his back on a hospital bed. And if there +had been a chance of her not knowing him—there was Red Pepper.</p> + +<p>It was Anne. It could not be Anne. Between these two convictions King's +head was whirling. Whoever it was, she had dared to look straight into +his eyes in broad daylight at a distance of not more than four feet. He +had seen into the very depths of her own bewildering beauty, and the +encounter, always supposing her to be the person of whom he had thought +continuously for four months, was a thing to keep him thinking about her +whether he would or no.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151"></a>"Anything wrong?" asked Burns's voice in its coolest tones. "I suspect +I was something of an idiot to give you such a big dose of this at the +first trial."</p> + +<p>"I'm all right, thank you." And King sat up very straight in the car to +prove it. Nevertheless, when he was at home again he was not sorry to be +peremptorily ordered to lie supine on his back for at least three hours.</p> + +<p>It was not long after this that King was able to bring about the thing +he most desired—a talk with Mrs. Burns. She came to see him one July +day, at his request, at an hour when he knew his mother must be away. +With her he went straight to his point; the moment the first greetings +were over and he had been congratulated on his ability to spend a few +hours each day at his desk, he began upon the subject uppermost in his +thoughts. He told her the story of his encounter with the girl in the +car, and asked her if she thought it could have been Miss Linton.</p> + +<p>She looked at him musingly. "Do you prefer to think it was or was not?" +she asked.</p> + +<p>"Are you going to answer accordingly?"</p> + +<p>"Not at all. I was wondering which I wanted to think myself. I wish I +had been with you. I should have known."</p> + +<p>"Would you?" King spoke eagerly. "Would you mind telling me how?"</p> + +<p><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152"></a>"I can't tell you how. Of course I came to know her looks much better +than you; it really isn't strange that after seeing her only twice you +couldn't be sure. I don't think any change of dress or environment could +have hidden her from me. The question is, of course, why—if it was +she—she should have chosen not to seem to know you—unless—"</p> + +<p>"Yes—"</p> + +<p>She looked straight at him. "Unless—she is not the poor girl she seemed +to be. And that explanation doesn't appeal to me. I have known of poor +girls pretending to be rich, but I have never, outside of a sensational +novel, known a rich girl to pretend to be poor, unless for a visit to a +poor quarter for charitable purposes. What possible object could there +be in a girl's going about selling books unless she needed to do it? And +she allowed me—" She stopped, shaking her head. "No, Jordan, that was +not our little friend—or if it was, she was in that car by some curious +chance, not because she belonged there."</p> + +<p>"So you're going on trusting her?" was King's abstract of these +reflections. He scanned her closely.</p> + +<p>She nodded. "Until I have stronger proof to the contrary than your +looking into a pair of beautiful eyes. Have you never observed, my +friend, how <a name="Page_153" id="Page_153"></a>many pairs of beautiful eyes there are in the world?"</p> + +<p>He shook his head. "I haven't bothered much about them, except now and +then for a bit of nonsense making."</p> + +<p>"But this pair you, too, are going to go on trusting?"</p> + +<p>"I am. If that girl was Miss Linton she had a reason for not speaking. +If it wasn't"—he drew a deep breath—"well, I don't know exactly how to +explain that!"</p> + +<p>"I do," said Ellen Burns, smiling. "She thought she would never see you +again, and she yielded to a girlish desire to look hard at—a real man."</p> + +<p>It was this speech which, in spite of himself, lingered in King's mind +after she was gone, for the balm there was in it—a balm she had +perfectly understood and meant to put there. Well she guessed what his +disablement meant to him—in spite of the hope of complete recovery—how +little he seemed to himself like the man he was before.</p> + +<p>Certainly it was nothing short of real manhood which prompted the talk +he had with his mother one day not long after this. She brought him a +letter, and she was scrutinizing it closely as she came toward him. He +was fathoms deep in his work and did not observe her until she spoke.</p> + +<p>"Whom can you possibly have as a correspond<a name="Page_154" id="Page_154"></a>ent in this town, my son?" +she inquired, her eyes upon the postmark, which was that of a small city +a hundred miles away. It was one in which lived an old school friend of +whom she had never spoken, to her recollection, in King's hearing, for +the reason that the family had since suffered deep disgrace in the eyes +of the world, and she had been inexpressibly shocked thereby.</p> + +<p>King looked up. He was always hoping for a word from Anne Linton, and +now, suddenly, it had come, just a week after the encounter with the +girl in the car—which had been going, as it happened, in the opposite +direction from the city of the postmark. He recognized instantly the +handwriting upon the plain, white business envelope—an interesting +handwriting, clear and black, without a single feminine flourish. He +took the letter in his hand and studied it.</p> + +<p>"It is from Miss Linton," he said, "and I am very glad to hear from her. +It is the first time she has written since she went away—over two +months ago."</p> + +<p>He spoke precisely as he would have spoken if it had been a letter from +any friend he had. It was like him to do this, and the surer another man +would have been to try to conceal his interest in the letter the surer +was Jordan King to proclaim it. The very fact that this announcement was +certain to rouse his mother's suspicion that the affair was <a name="Page_155" id="Page_155"></a>of moment +to him was enough to make him tell her frankly that she was quite right.</p> + +<p>He laid the letter on the desk before him unopened, and went on with his +work. Mrs. King stood still and looked at him a moment before moving +quietly away, and disturbance was written upon her face. She knew her +son's habit of finishing one thing before he took up another, but she +understood also that he wished to be alone when he should read this +letter. She left the room, but soon afterward she softly passed the open +door, and she saw that the letter lay open before him and that his head +was bent over it. The words before him were these:</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"><span class="smcap">Dear Mr. King</span>: + +<p> I had not meant to write to you for much longer than this, but + I find myself so anxious to know how you are that I am + yielding to the temptation. I may as well confess that I am + just a little lonely to-night, in spite of having had a pretty + good day with the little book—rather better than usual. + Sometimes I almost wish I hadn't spent that fortnight with + Mrs. Burns, I find myself missing her so. And yet, how can one + be sorry for any happy thing that comes to one? As I look back + on them now, though I am well and strong again, those days of + convalescence in the hospital stand out as among the happiest + in my life. The pleasant people, the flowers, the notes, all + the incidents of that time, not the least among them Franz's + music, stay in my memory like a series of pictures.</p> + +<p> Do you care to tell me how you come on? If so you may write to + me, care of general delivery, in this town, at any time for + the next five days. I shall be so glad to hear.</p> + +<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Anne Linton.</span></p></div> + +<p><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156"></a>King looked up as his mother approached. He folded the letter and put +it into his pocket.</p> + +<p>"Mother," he said, "I may as well tell you something. You won't approve +of it, and that is why I must tell you. From the hour I first saw Miss +Linton I've been unable to forget her. I know, by every sign, that she +is all she seems to be. I can't let her go out of my life without an +effort to keep her. I'm going to keep her, if I can."</p> + +<p>Two hours later R.P. Burns, M.D., was summoned to the bedside of Mrs. +Alexander King. He sat down beside the limp form, felt the pulse, laid +his hand upon the shaking shoulder of the prostrate lady, who had gone +down before her son's decision, gentle though his manner with her had +been. She had argued, prayed, entreated, wept, but she had not been able +to shake his purpose. Now she was reaping the consequences of her +agitation.</p> + +<p>"My son, my only boy," she moaned as Burns asked her to tell him her +trouble, "after all these years of his being such a man, to change +suddenly into a willful boy again! It's inconceivable; it's not +possible! Doctor, you must tell him, you must argue with him. He can't +marry this girl, he can't! Why, he doesn't even know the place she comes +from, to say nothing of who she is—her family, her position in life. +She must be a common sort of creature to follow him up so; you know she +must. I <a name="Page_157" id="Page_157"></a>can't have it; I will not have it! You must tell him so!"</p> + +<p>Burns considered. There was a curious light in his eyes. "My dear lady," +he said gently at length, "Jordan is a man; you can't control him. He is +a mighty manly man, too—as his frankly telling you his intention +proves. Most sons would have kept their plans to themselves, and simply +have brought the mother home her new daughter some day without any +warning. As for Miss Linton, I assure you she is a lady—as it seems to +me you must have seen for yourself."</p> + +<p>"She is clever; she could act the part of a lady, no doubt," moaned the +one who possessed a clear title to that form of address. "But she might +be anything. Why didn't she tell you something of herself? Jordan could +not say that you knew the least thing about her. People with fine family +records are not so mysterious. There is something wrong about her—I +know it—I know it! Oh, I can't have it so; I can't! You must stop it, +Doctor; you must!"</p> + +<p>"She spent two weeks in our home," Burns said. "During that time there +was no test she did not stand. Come, Mrs. King, you know that it doesn't +take long to discover the flaw in any metal. She rang true at every +touch. She's a girl of education, of refinement—why, Ellen came to feel +plenty of <a name="Page_158" id="Page_158"></a>real affection for her before she left us, and you know that +means a good deal. As for the mystery about her, what's that? Most +people talk too much about their affairs. If, as we think, she has been +brought up in circumstances very different from these we find her in, it +isn't strange that she doesn't want to tell us all about the change."</p> + +<p>But his patient continued to moan, and he could give her no consolation. +For a time he sat quietly beside the couch where lay the long and +slender form, and he was thinking things over. The room was veiled in a +half twilight, partly the effect of closing day and partly that of drawn +shades. The deep and sobbing breaths continued until suddenly Burns's +hand was laid firmly upon the hand which clutched a handkerchief wet +with many tears. He spoke now in a new tone, one she had never before +heard from him addressed to herself:</p> + +<p>"This," he said, "isn't worthy of you, my friend."</p> + +<p>It was as if her breath were temporarily suspended while she listened. +People were not accustomed to tell Mrs. Alexander King that her course +of action was unworthy of her.</p> + +<p>"No man or woman has a right to dictate to another what he shall do, +provided the thing contemplated is not an offense against another. You +<a name="Page_159" id="Page_159"></a>have no right to set your will against your son's when it is a matter +of his life's happiness."</p> + +<p>She seized on this last phrase. "But that's why I do oppose him. I want +him to be happy—heaven knows I do! He can't be happy—this way."</p> + +<p>"How do you know that? You don't know it. You are just as likely to make +him bitterly unhappy by opposing him as by letting him alone. And I can +tell you one thing surely, Mrs. King: Jordan will do as he wishes in +spite of you, and all you will gain by opposition will be not a gain, +but a sacrifice—of his love."</p> + +<p>She shivered. "How can you think he will be so selfish?"</p> + +<p>Burns had some ado to keep his rising temper down. "Selfish—to marry +the woman he wants instead of the woman you want? That's an old, old +argument of selfish mothers."</p> + +<p>The figure on the couch stiffened. "Doctor Burns! How can you speak so, +when all I ask for is my son's best good?" The words ended in a wail.</p> + +<p>"You think you do, dear lady. What you really want is—your own way."</p> + +<p>Suddenly she sat up, staring at him. His clear gaze met her clouded one, +his sane glance confronted her wild one. She lifted her shaking hand +<a name="Page_160" id="Page_160"></a>with a gesture of dismissal. But there was a new experience in store +for Jordan King's mother.</p> + +<p>Burns leaned forward, and took the delicate hand of his hysterical +patient in his own.</p> + +<p>"No, no," he said, smiling, "you don't mean that; you are not quite +yourself. I am Jordan's friend and yours. I have said harsh things to +you; it was the only way. I love your boy as I would a younger brother, +and I want you to keep him because I can understand what the loss of him +would mean to you. But you must know that you can't tie a man's heart to +you with angry commands, nor with tears and reproaches. You can tie +it—tight—by showing sympathy and understanding in this crisis of his +life. Believe me, I know."</p> + +<p>His tone was very winning; his manner—now that he had said his +say—though firm, was gentle, and he held her hand in a way that did +much toward quieting her. Many patients in danger of losing self-control +had known the strengthening, soothing touch of that strong hand. Red +Pepper was not accustomed to misuse this power of his, which came very +near being hypnotic, but neither did he hesitate to use it when the +occasion called as loudly as did this one.</p> + +<p>And presently Mrs. King was lying quietly on her couch again, her eyes +closed, the beating of her agitated pulses slowly quieting. And Burns, +bending <a name="Page_161" id="Page_161"></a>close, was saying before he left her: "That's a brave woman. +Ladies are lovely things, but I respect women more. Only a mighty fine +one could be the mother of my friend Jord, and I knew she would meet +this issue like the Spartan she knows how to be."</p> + +<p>If, as he stole away downstairs—leaving his patient in the hands of a +somewhat long-suffering maid—he was saying to himself things of a quite +different sort, let him not be blamed for insincerity. He had at the +last used the one stimulant against which most of us are powerless: the +call to be that which we believe another thinks us.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<h3>THE SURGICAL FIRING LINE</h3> + + +<p>"Len, I've something great to tell you," announced Red Pepper Burns, one +evening in August, as he came out from his office where he had been +seeing a late patient, and joined his wife, who was wandering about her +garden in the twilight. "To-day I've had the compliment of my life. Whom +do you think I'm to operate on day after to-morrow?"</p> + +<p>She looked up at him as he stood, his hands in his pockets, looking down +at her. In her sheer white frock, through which gleamed her neck and +arms, her hands full of pink and white snapdragon, she was worth +consideration. Her eyes searched his face and found there a curious +exultation of a very human sort. "How could I guess? Tell me."</p> + +<p>"Who should you say was the very last man on earth to do me the honour +of trusting me in a serious emergency?"</p> + +<p>She turned away her head, gazing down at a fragrant border of +mignonette, while he watched her, a smile on his lips. She looked up +again. "I can't <a name="Page_163" id="Page_163"></a>think, Red. It seems to me everybody trusts you."</p> + +<p>"Not by a long shot, or the rest of the profession would stand idle. But +there's one man who I should have said, to use a time-honoured phrase, +wouldn't let me operate on a sick cat. And he's the man who is going to +put his life in my hands Wednesday morning at ten o'clock. Len, if I am +ever on my mettle to do a perfect job, it'll be then!"</p> + +<p>"Of course. But who—"</p> + +<p>"I should think the name would leap to your lips. Who's mine ancient +enemy, the man who has fought me by politely sneering at me, and +circumventing me when he could, ever since I began practice, and whom +I've fought back in my way? Why, Len—"</p> + +<p>Her dark eyes grew wide. "Red! Not—Doctor Van Horn?"</p> + +<p>"Even so."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Red! That is a compliment—and more than a compliment. But I should +never have thought of him somehow because, I suppose—"</p> + +<p>"Because nobody ever thinks of a doctor's being sick or needing an +operation. But doctors do—sometimes—and usually pretty badly, too, +before they will submit to it. Van Horn's in dreadful shape, and has +been keeping it dark—until it's got <a name="Page_164" id="Page_164"></a>the upper hand of him completely. +Mighty plucky the way he's been going on with his work, with trouble +gnawing at his vitals."</p> + +<p>"How did he come to call you?"</p> + +<p>"That's what I'm wondering. But call me he did, yesterday, and I've seen +him twice since. And when I told him what had to be done he took it like +a soldier without wincing. But when he said he wanted me to do the trick +you could have knocked me down with a lead pencil. My word, Len, I have +been doing Van an injustice all these years! The real stuff is in him, +after all, and plenty of it, too."</p> + +<p>"It is he who has done you the injustice," Ellen said with a little lift +of the head.</p> + +<p>"I know I have given you reason to think so—the times I've come home +raving mad at some cut of his. But, Len, that's all past and he wipes it +out by trusting me now. The biggest thing I've had against him was not +his knifing me but his apparent toadying to the rich and influential. +But there's another side to that and I see it now. Some people have to +be coddled, and though it goes against my grain to do it, I don't know +why a man who can be diplomatic and winning, like Van Horn, hasn't his +place just as much as a rough rider like me. Anyhow, the thing now is to +pull him through his operation, and if I can do it—well, Van and I +<a name="Page_165" id="Page_165"></a>will be on a new basis, and a mighty comfortable one it will be."</p> + +<p>His voice was eager and his wife understood just how his pulses were +thrilling, as do those of the born surgeon, at the approach of a great +opportunity.</p> + +<p>"I'm very, very glad, dear," Ellen said warmly. "It's a real triumph of +faith over jealousy, and I don't wonder you are proud of such a +commission. I know you will bring him through."</p> + +<p>"If I don't—but that's not to be thought of. It's a case that calls for +extremely delicate surgery and a sure hand, but the ground is plainly +mapped out and only some absolutely unforeseen complication is to be +dreaded. And when it comes to those complications—well, Len, sometimes +I think it must be the good Lord who works a man's brain for him at such +crises, and makes it pretty nearly superhuman. It's hard to account any +other way, sometimes, for the success of the quick decisions you make +under necessity that would take a lot of time to work out if you had the +time. Oh, it's a great game, Len, no doubt of that—when you win. And +when you lose"—he stopped short, staring into the shadows where a row +of dark-leaved laurel bushes shut away the garden in a soft +seclusion—"well, that's another story, a heartbreaking story."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166"></a>He was silent for a minute, then, in another tone, he spoke +confidently: "But—this isn't going to be a story of that kind. Van Horn +has a big place in the city and he's going to keep it. And I'm going to +spend the rest of this evening making a bit of a tool I've had in mind +for some time—that there's a remote chance I shall need in this case. +But if that remote chance should come—well, there's nothing like a +state of preparedness, as the military men say."</p> + +<p>"That's why you succeed, Red; you always are prepared."</p> + +<p>"Not always. And it's in the emergency you can't foresee that heaven +comes to the rescue. You can't expect it to come to the rescue when you +might have foreseen. 'Trust the Lord and keep your powder dry' is a +pretty good maxim for the surgical firing line, too—eh?"</p> + +<p>With his arm through his wife's he paced several times up and down the +flowery borders, then went away into the small laboratory and machine +shop where he was accustomed to do much of the work which showed only in +its final results. Through the rest of the hot August evening, his +attire stripped to the lowest terms compatible with possible unexpected +visitors, he laboured with all the enthusiasm characteristic of him at +tasks which to another mind would have been drudgery indeed.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167"></a>To him, at about ten o'clock, came his neighbour and friend, Arthur +Chester. Standing with arms on the sill outside of the lighted window, +clad in summer vestments of white and looking as cool and fresh as the +man inside looked hot and dirty, Chester attempted to lure the worker +forth.</p> + +<p>"Win's serving a lot of cold, wet stuff on our porch," he announced. +"Ellen's there, and the Macauleys, and Jord King has just driven up and +stopped for a minute. He's got Aleck with him and he's pleased as Punch +because he's rigged a contrivance so that Aleck can drive himself with +one hand. What do you think of that?"</p> + +<p>"Good work," replied Burns absently after a minute, during which he +tested a steel edge with an experimental finger and shook his head at +it.</p> + +<p>"Did you expect Jord to keep Aleck, when he's got to have another man +besides for the things Aleck can't do now?"</p> + +<p>Burns nodded. "Expect anything—of him."</p> + +<p>"Put down that murderous-looking thing and come along over. Ellen said +you were here, and Win sent word to you not to bother to change your +clothes."</p> + +<p>"Thanks—I won't."</p> + +<p>"Won't bother—or won't come?"</p> + +<p>"Both."</p> + +<p>Chester sighed. "Do you know what you re<a name="Page_168" id="Page_168"></a>mind me of when you get in this +hole of a workshop? A bull pup with his teeth in something, and only +growls issuing."</p> + +<p>"Better keep away then."</p> + +<p>"I suppose that's a hint—a bull-pup hint."</p> + +<p>Silence from inside, while the worker stirred something boiling over a +flame, poured a dark fluid from one retort into another, dropped in a +drop or two of something from a small vial inflammatorily labelled, and +started an electric motor in a corner. Chester could see the shine of +perspiration on the smooth brow below the coppery hair, and drops +standing like dew on the broad white chest from which the open shirt was +turned widely back.</p> + +<p>"It must be about a hundred and fifty Fahrenheit in there," he +commented. Burns grunted an assent. "It's only eighty-four on our porch, +and growing cooler every minute. The things we have to drink are just +above thirty-two, right off the ice." Chester's words were carefully +chosen.</p> + +<p>"Dangerous extremes. But I wouldn't mind having a pint or two of +something cold. Go, bring it to me."</p> + +<p>"Well, I like that."</p> + +<p>"So'll I, I hope."</p> + +<p>Chester laughed and strolled away. When he returned he carried a big +crystal pitcher filled with <a name="Page_169" id="Page_169"></a>a pleasantly frothing home-made amber brew +in which ice tinkled. With him came Jordan King. Chester shoved aside +the screen and pushed the pitcher inside, accompanied by a glass which +Winifred had insisted on sending.</p> + +<p>Burns caught up the pitcher, drank thirstily, drew his arm across his +mouth and grinned through the window, meeting Jordan King's smiling gaze +in return.</p> + +<p>"Company manners don't go when your hands are black, eh?" remarked the +man inside.</p> + +<p>"Mechanics and surgeons seem a good deal alike at times," was the +laughing reply.</p> + +<p>"Can't tell 'em apart. Your lily-handed surgeon is an anomaly. I hear +Aleck came out under his own steam to-night. How does it go?"</p> + +<p>"First rate. It was great fun. He's like a boiling kettle full of steam, +with the lid off just in time."</p> + +<p>"Good. Be on your guard when he's driving, though, for a while. Don't +let him stay at the wheel down Devil's Hill just yet."</p> + +<p>"Why not? He has absolute control the way I've fixed it. You see the +spark and gas are right where—"</p> + +<p>"I don't want you to take one chance in a million on that back of yours +yet. See? Or do I have to drive that order in and spike it down?"</p> + +<p>"He seems to have a lot of conversation in him—<a name="Page_170" id="Page_170"></a>for you," observed +Chester to King as the two outside laughed at this explosion from +within.</p> + +<p>"Such as it is," replied King with an audacious wink. "I thought I'd got +about through taking orders."</p> + +<p>"I'll give you both two minutes to clear out," came from inside the +window as Burns caught up a piece of steel and began narrowly to examine +it. Over it he looked at Jordan King, and the two exchanged a glance +which spoke of complete understanding.</p> + +<p>"Come again, boy," Burns said with a sudden flashing smile at his +friend.</p> + +<p>"I will—day after to-morrow in the afternoon," King returned, and his +eyes held Burns's.</p> + +<p>"What? Do you know?"</p> + +<p>King nodded, with a look of pride. "You bet I do."</p> + +<p>"Who told you?"</p> + +<p>"Himself."</p> + +<p>"Didn't know you knew him well enough for that."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, through mother; they're old friends. She sent me to see him +for her."</p> + +<p>"I see. Well, wish me luck!"</p> + +<p>"I wish you—your own skill at its highest power," said Jordan King +fervently.</p> + +<p>"Thanks, youngster," was Burns's answer, and this time there was no +smile on the face which he <a name="Page_171" id="Page_171"></a>lifted again for an instant from above the +tiny piece of steel which held in it such potentialities—in his hands.</p> + +<p>"You seem to have got farther in under his skin than the rest of us," +observed Chester to King as they walked slowly away. There was a touch +of unconscious jealousy in his tone. He had known R.P. Burns a long +while before Jordan King had reached man's estate. "I never knew him to +say a word about a coming operation before."</p> + +<p>"He didn't say it now; I happened to know. Come out and see the rigging +we've put on the car so Aleck can work everything with one hand and two +feet."</p> + +<p>"And a few brains, I should say," Chester supplemented.</p> + +<hr class="fifty" /> + +<p>Though Burns had plenty of other work to keep him busy during the +interval before he should lay hands upon Doctor Van Horn, his mind was +seldom off his coming task. In spite of all that Ellen knew of the past +antagonism between the two men she was in possession of but +comparatively few of the facts. Except where his fiery temper had +entirely overcome him Burns had been silent concerning the many causes +he had had to dislike and distrust the older man.</p> + +<p>As what is called "a fashionable physician,"<a name="Page_172" id="Page_172"></a> having for his patients +few outside of the wealthy class, Dr. James Van Horn had occupied a +field of practice entirely different from that of R.P. Burns. Though +Burns numbered on his list many of the city's best known and most +prosperous citizens, he held them by virtue of a manner of address and a +system of treatment differing in no wise from that which he employed +upon the poorest and humblest who came to him. If people liked him it +was for no blandishments of his, only for his sturdy manliness, his +absolute honesty, and a certain not unattractive bluntness of speech +whose humour often atoned for its thrust.</p> + +<p>As for his skill, there was no question that it ranked higher than that +of his special rival. As for his success, it had steadily increased. +And, as all who knew him could testify, when it came to that "last +ditch" in which lay a human being fighting for his life, Burns's +reputation for standing by, sleeves rolled up and body stiff with +resistance of the threatening evil, was such that there was no man to +compete with him.</p> + +<p>It was inevitable that in a city of the moderate size of that in which +these two men practised there should arise situations which sometimes +brought about a clash between them. The patient of one, having arrived +at serious straits, often called for a consultation with the other. The +very professional <a name="Page_173" id="Page_173"></a>bearing and methods of the two were so different, +strive though they might to adapt themselves to each other at least in +the presence of the patient, that trouble usually began at once, veiled +though it might be under the stringencies of professional etiquette. +Later, when it came to matters of life and death, these men were sure to +disagree radically. Van Horn, dignified of presence, polished of speech, +was apt to impress the patient's family with his wisdom, his restraint, +his modestly assured sense of the fitness of his own methods to the +needs of the case; while Burns, burning with indignation over some +breach of faith occasioned by his senior's orders in his absence, or +other indignity, flaming still more hotly over being forced into a +course which he believed to be against the patient's interest, was +likely to blurt out some rough speech at a moment when silence, as far +as his own interests were concerned, would have been more discreet—and +then would come rupture.</p> + +<p>Usually those most concerned never guessed at the hidden fires, because +even Burns, under bonds to his wife to restrain himself at moments of +danger, was nearly always able to get away from such scenes without open +outbreak. But more than once a situation had developed which could be +handled only by the withdrawal of one or the other physician from the +case—and then, whether he <a name="Page_174" id="Page_174"></a>went or stayed, Burns could seldom win +through without showing what he felt.</p> + +<p>Now, however, he was feeling as he had never dreamed he could feel +toward James Van Horn. The way in which the man was facing the present +crisis in his life called for Burns's honest and ungrudging admiration. +With that same cool and unflurried bearing with which Van Horn was +accustomed to hold his own in a consultation was he now awaiting the +uncertain issue of his determination to end, in one way or the other, +the disability under which he was suffering.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<h3>THE ONLY SAFE PLACE</h3> + + +<p>When Red Pepper Burns visited James Van Horn, at the hospital, on the +evening before the operation, he found him lying quietly in bed, ready +for the night—and the morning. He looked up and smiled the same +slightly frosty smile Burns knew so well, but which he now interpreted +differently. As he sat down by the bedside the younger man's heart was +unbelievably warm.</p> + +<p>He looked straight, with his powerful hazel eyes slightly veiled by a +contraction of the eyelids, into the steady gray eyes of his +patient—his patient—he could not believe it yet. He laid exploring +fingers upon the pulse of the hand he had just grasped.</p> + +<p>"If they were all like you," he said gently, "we should have better +chances for doing our best. How do you manage it, Doctor?"</p> + +<p>"Temperament, I suppose," returned the other lightly. "Or"—and now he +spoke less lightly—"belief—or lack of it. If we get through—very +<a name="Page_176" id="Page_176"></a>well; I shall go on with my work. If we don't get through—that ends +it. I have no belief in any hereafter, as you may know. A few years more +or less—what does it matter?"</p> + +<p>Burns studied the finely chiselled face in silence for a minute, then he +spoke slowly: "It matters this much—to me. If by a chance, a slip, a +lack of skill, I should put an end to a life which would never live +again, I could not bear it."</p> + +<p>Van Horn smiled—and somehow the smile was not frosty at all. "I am +trusting you. Your hand won't slip; there will be no lack of skill. If +you don't pull me through, it will be because destiny is too much for +us. To be honest, I don't care how it comes out. And yet, that's not +quite true either. I do care; only I want to be entirely well again. I +can't go on as I have gone."</p> + +<p>"You shall not. We're going to win; I'm confident of it. Only—Doctor, +if the unforeseen should happen I don't want you to go out of this life +believing there's no other. Listen." He pulled out a notebook and +searching, found a small newspaper clipping. "A big New York paper the +other day printed this headline: '<i>Fell Eight Stories to Death</i>.' A +smaller city paper copied it with this ironical comment: '<i>Headlines +cannot be too complete. But what a great story it would have been if he +had fallen eight stories to life!</i>'<a name="Page_177" id="Page_177"></a> And then one of the biggest and +most influential and respected newspapers in the world copied both +headlines and comment and gave the whole thing a fresh title: '<i>Falls to +Life—Immortal</i>.' Doctor—you can't afford to lie to-night where you +do—and take chances on that last thing's not being true. The greatest +minds the world knows believe it is true."</p> + +<p>A silence fell. Then Van Horn spoke: "Burns, do you think it's wise to +turn a patient's thoughts into this channel on the eve of a crisis?"</p> + +<p>Burns regarded him closely. "Can you tell me, Doctor," he asked, "that +your thoughts weren't already in that channel?"</p> + +<p>"Suppose they were. And suppose I even admitted the possibility that you +were right—which, mind you, I don't—what use is it to argue the +question at this late hour?"</p> + +<p>"Because the hour is not too late. If you want to sleep quietly to-night +and wake fit for what's coming, put yourself in the hands of the Maker +of heaven and earth before you sleep. Then, whether there's a hereafter +or not won't matter for you; you'll leave that to Him. But you'll be in +His hands—and that's the only place it's safe to be."</p> + +<p>"Suppose I told you I didn't believe in any such Being."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178"></a>"I should tell you you knew better—and knew it with every fibre of +you."</p> + +<p>The two pairs of eyes steadily regarded each other. In Burns's flamed +sincerity and conviction. In Van Horn's grew a curious sort of +suffering. He moved restlessly on his pillow.</p> + +<p>"If I had known you were a fanatic as well as a fighter I might have +hesitated to call you, even though I believe in you as a surgeon," he +said somewhat huskily.</p> + +<p>"It's surgery you're getting from me to-night, but I cut to cure. A mind +at rest will help you through to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Why should you think my mind isn't at rest? You commended me for my +quiet mind when you came in."</p> + +<p>"For your cool control. But your unhappy spirit looked out of your eyes +at me, and I've spoken to that. I couldn't keep silence. Forgive me, +Doctor; I'm a blunt fellow, as you have reason to know. I haven't liked +you, and you haven't liked me. We've fought each other all along the +line. But your calling me now has touched me very much, and I find +myself caring tremendously to give you the best I have. And not only the +best my hands have to give you, but the best of my brain and heart. And +that belief in the Almighty and His power to rule this world and other +<a name="Page_179" id="Page_179"></a>worlds is the best I have. I'd like to give it to you."</p> + +<p>He rose, his big figure towering like a mountain of strength above the +slender form in the bed.</p> + +<p>Van Horn stretched up his hand to say good-night. "I know you thought it +right to say this to me, Burns," he said, "and I have reason to know +that when you think a thing is right you don't hesitate to do it. I like +your frankness—better than I seem to. I trust you none the less for +this talk; perhaps more. Do your best by me in the morning, and whatever +happens, your conscience will be free."</p> + +<p>Burns's two sinewy hands clasped the thin but still firm one of Van +Horn. "As I said just now, I've never wanted more to do my best than for +you," came very gently from his lips. "And I can tell you for your +comfort that the more anxious I am to do good work the surer I am to do +it. I don't know why it should be so; I've heard plenty of men say it +worked just the other way with them. Yes, I do know why. I think I'll +tell you the explanation. The more anxious I am the harder I pray to my +God to make me fit. And when I go from my knees to the operating-room I +feel armed to the teeth."</p> + +<p>He smiled, a brilliant, heart-warming smile, and suddenly he looked, to +the man on the bed who <a name="Page_180" id="Page_180"></a>gazed at him, more like a conqueror than any one +he had ever seen. And all at once James Van Horn understood why, with +all his faults of temper and speech, his patients loved and clung to Red +Pepper Burns; and why he, Van Horn himself, had not been able to defeat +Burns as a rival. There was something about the man which spoke of +power, and at this moment it seemed clear, even to the skeptic, that it +was not wholly human power.</p> + +<p>Burns bent over the bed. "Good-night, Doctor," he said softly, almost as +he might have spoken to a child. Then, quite as he might have spoken to +a child, he added: "Say a bit of a prayer before you go to sleep. It +won't hurt you, and—who knows?—even unbelieving, you may get an +answer."</p> + +<p>Van Horn smiled up at him wanly. "Good-night, Doctor," he replied. +"Thank you for coming in—whether I sleep the better or the worse for +it."</p> + +<hr class="fifty" /> + +<p>If there were anything of the fanatic about Redfield Pepper Burns—and +the term was one which no human being but Van Horn had ever applied to +him—it was the fighting, not the fasting, side of his character which +showed uppermost at ten next morning. He came out of his hospital +dressing-room with that look of dogged determination written upon brow +and mouth which his associates <a name="Page_181" id="Page_181"></a>knew well, and they had never seen it +written larger. From Doctor Buller, who usually gave the anesthetics in +Burns's cases, and from Miss Mathewson, who almost invariably worked +upon the opposite side of the operating table, to the newest nurse whose +only mission was to be at hand for observation, the staff more or less +acutely sensed the situation. Not one of those who had been for any +length of time in the service but understood that it was an unusual +situation.</p> + +<p>That James Van Horn and R.P. Burns had long been conscious or +unconscious rivals was known to everybody. Van Horn was not popular with +the hospital staff, while Burns might have ordered them all to almost +any deed of valour and have been loyally obeyed. But Van Horn's standing +in the city was well understood; he was admired and respected as the +most imposing and influential figure in the medical profession there +represented. He held many posts of distinction, not only in the city, +but in the state, and his name at the head of an article in any +professional magazine carried weight and authority. And that he should +have chosen Burns, rather than have sent abroad for any more famous +surgeon, was to be considered an extraordinary honour indicative of a +confidence not to have been expected.</p> + +<p>Altogether, there was more than ordinary tension <a name="Page_182" id="Page_182"></a>observable in the +operating-room just before the appointed hour. A number of the city's +surgeons were present—Grayson, Fields, Lenhart, Stevenson—men +accustomed to see Burns at work and to recognize his ability as +uncommon. Not that they often admitted this to themselves or to one +another, but the fact remains that they understood precisely why Van +Horn, if he chose a local man at all—which of itself had surprised them +very much—had selected Burns. Not one of them, no matter how personally +he felt antagonistic to this most constantly employed member of the +profession, but would have felt safer in his hands in such a crisis than +in those of any of his associates.</p> + +<p>Burns held a brief conference with Miss Mathewson, who having been with +him in his office and his operative work for the entire twelve years of +his practice, was herself all but a surgeon and suited him better than +any man, with her deft fingers and sure response to his slightest +indication of intention. The others found themselves watching the two as +they came forward, cool, steady, ready for the perfect team work they +had so long played. If both hearts were beating a degree faster than +usual there was nothing to show it. Nobody knew what had passed between +the two. If they had known they might have understood why they worked so +perfectly together.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183"></a>"You're going to give me your best to-day, Amy, eh?"</p> + +<p>"You know that, Doctor Burns."</p> + +<p>"Of course I know it. But I want a little better than your best. This is +one of the cases where every second is going to count. We have to make +all the speed that's in us without a slip. I can trust you. I didn't +tell you before because I didn't want you thinking about it. But I tell +you now because I've got to have the speed. All right; that's all."</p> + +<p>He gave her one quick smile, then his face was set and stern again, as +always at this moment, for it was the moment when he caught sight of his +patient, quietly asleep, being brought to him. And it was the moment +when one swift echo of the prayer he had already made upon his knees +leaped through his mind—to be gone again as lightning flashes through a +midnight sky. After that there was to be no more prayer, only action.</p> + +<hr class="fifty" /> + +<p>The watching surgeons unconsciously held their breath as the operation +began. For the patient on the table was James Van Horn, and the man who +had taken Van Horn's life into his hands was not a great surgeon from +New York or Boston, as was to have been anticipated, but their everyday +colleague<a name="Page_184" id="Page_184"></a> Burns. And at that moment not one of them envied him his +chance.</p> + +<p>Ellen had seldom waited more anxiously for the word her husband always +sent her at such times. He fully recognized that the silent partner in +crises like these suffered a very real and trying suspense, the greater +that there was nothing she could do for him except to send him to his +work heartened by the thought of her and of her belief in him.</p> + +<p>It was longer than usual, on this more than ordinarily fateful morning, +before Ellen received the first word from the hospital. When it came it +was from an attendant and it was not reassuring:</p> + +<p>"Doctor Burns wishes me to tell you that the patient has come through +the operation, but is in a critical condition. He will not leave him at +present."</p> + +<p>This meant more hours of waiting, during which Ellen could set her mind +and hand to nothing which was not purely mechanical. She was realizing +to the full that it was the unknown factor of which Burns had often +spoken, the unforeseen contingency, which might upset all the +calculations and efforts of science and skill. Well she knew that, +though her husband's reputation was an assured one, it might suffer +somewhat from the loss of this prominent case. Ellen felt certain that +this last <a name="Page_185" id="Page_185"></a>consideration was one to weigh little with Burns himself +compared with his personal and bitter regret over an unsuccessful effort +to save a life. But it seemed to her that she cared from every point of +view, and to her the time of waiting was especially hard to bear.</p> + +<p>There was one relief in the situation—never had she had her vigils +shared as Jordan King was sharing this one. As the hours went by, both +by messages over the telephone and by more than one hurried drive out to +see Ellen in person, did he let her know that his concern for Burns's +victory was only second to her own.</p> + +<p>"He's got to save him!" was his declaration, standing in her doorway, +late in the evening, hat in hand, bright dark eyes on Ellen's. "And the +way he's sticking by, I'm confident he will. That bull-dog grip of his +we know so well would pull a ton of lead out of a quicksand. He won't +give up while there's a breath stirring, and even if it stops he'll +start it again—with his will!"</p> + +<p>"You are a loyal friend." Ellen's smile rewarded him for this blindly +assured speech, well as she knew how shaky was the foundation on which +he might be standing. "But the last message he sent was only that no +ground had been lost."</p> + +<p>"Well, that's a good deal after ten hours." He <a name="Page_186" id="Page_186"></a>looked at his watch. +"Keep a brave heart, Mrs. Burns. I'm going to the hospital now to see if +I can get just a glimpse of our man before we settle down for the night. +And I want to arrange with Miss Dwight—she was my nurse—to let me know +any news at any hour in the night."</p> + +<p>It was at three in the morning that King called her to say with a ring +of joy in his voice: "There's a bit of a gain, Mrs. Burns. It looks +brighter."</p> + +<p>It was at eight, five hours later, that Burns himself spoke to her. His +voice betrayed tension in spite of its steadiness. "We're holding hard, +Len; that's about all I can say."</p> + +<p>"Dear—are you getting any rest?"</p> + +<p>"Don't want any; I'm all right. I'll not be home till we're out of this, +you know. Good-bye, my girl." And he was gone, back to the bedside. She +knew, without being told, that he had hardly left it.</p> + +<p>Thirty-six hours had gone by, and Ellen and Jordan King had had many +messages from the hospital before the one came which eased their anxious +minds: "Out of immediate danger." It was almost another thirty-six +before Burns came home.</p> + +<p>She had never seen him look more radiantly happy, though the shadows +under his eyes were heavy, and there were lines of fatigue about his +mouth. Although she had been watching for him <a name="Page_187" id="Page_187"></a>he took her by surprise +at last, coming upon her in the early morning just as she was descending +the stairs. With both arms around her, as she stood on the bottom stair, +he looked into her eyes.</p> + +<p>"The game's worth the candle, Len," he said.</p> + +<p>"Even though you've been burning the candle at both ends, dear? Yes, I +know it is. I'm so glad—so glad!"</p> + +<p>"We're sworn friends, Van and I. Can you believe it? Len, he's simply +the finest ever."</p> + +<p>She smiled at him. "I'm sure you think so; it's just what you would +think, my generous boy."</p> + +<p>"I'll prove it to you by and by, when I've had a wink of sleep. A bath, +breakfast, and two hours of rest—then I'll be in service again. Van's +resting comfortably, practically out of danger, and—Len, his eyes +remind me of a sick child's who has waked out of a delirium to find his +mother by his side."</p> + +<p>"Is that the way his eyes look when they meet yours?"</p> + +<p>He nodded. "Of course. That's how I know."</p> + +<p>"O Red," she said softly—"to think of the eyes that look at you like +that!"</p> + +<p>"They don't all," he answered as the two went up the stairs side by +side. "But Van—well, he's been through the deep waters, and he's +found—a <a name="Page_188" id="Page_188"></a>footing on rock where he expected shifting sands. Ah, there's +my boy! Give him to me quick!"</p> + +<p>The Little-Un, surging plumply out of the nursery, tumbled into his +father's arms, and submitted, shouting with glee, to the sort of +huggings, kissings, and general inspection to which he was happily +accustomed when Burns came home after a longer absence than usual.</p> + +<p>Just before he went back to the hospital, refreshed by an hour's longer +sleep than he had meant to take, because Ellen would not wake him +sooner, Burns opened the pile of mail which had accumulated during his +absence. He sat on the arm of the blue couch, tossing the letters one by +one upon the table behind it, in two piles, one for his personal +consideration, the other for Miss Mathewson's answering. Ellen, happily +relaxing in a corner of the couch, her eyes watching the letter opening, +saw her husband's eyes widen as he stooped to pick up a small blue paper +which had fallen from the missive he had just slitted. As he unfolded +the blue slip and glanced at it, an astonished whistle leaped to his +lips.</p> + +<p>"Well, by the powers—what's this?" he murmured. "A New York draft for a +thousand dollars, inclosed in a letter which says nothing except a +typewritten '<i>From One of the most grateful of all grateful patients</i>.' +Len, what do you think of that?<a name="Page_189" id="Page_189"></a> Who on earth sent it? I haven't had a +rich patient who hasn't paid his bill, or who won't pay it in due form +when he gets around to it. And the poor ones don't send checks of this +size."</p> + +<p>"I can't imagine," she said, studying the few words on the otherwise +blank sheet, and the postmark on the typewritten envelope, which showed +the letter also to have come from New York. "You haven't had a patient +lately who was travelling—a hotel case, or anything of that sort?"</p> + +<p>He shook his head. "None that didn't pay before he left—and none that +seemed particularly grateful anyhow. Well, I must be off. The thousand's +all right, wherever it came from, eh? And I want to get back to Van. I'd +put that draft in the fire rather than go back to find the slightest +slip in his case. I think, if I should, I'd lose my nerve at last."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<h3>THE TRUTH ABOUT SUSQUEHANNA</h3> + + +<p>Jordan King, directing his car with necessary caution through the +traffic of a small but crowded city, two hundred miles from home, +suddenly threw out his clutch and jammed his brakes into urgent use. +Beside him Aleck, flinging out a hasty arm to warn drivers pressing +closely behind, gazed at his employer in wonder. There was absolutely +nothing to stop them, and an autocratic crossing policeman just ahead +was impatiently waving them forward.</p> + +<p>But King, his eyes apparently following something or some one in the +throng, which had just negotiated the crossing of the street at right +angles to his own direction, spoke hurriedly: "Turn to the right here, +Aleck, and wait for me at the first spot down that street where they'll +let you stop."</p> + +<p>He was out of the car and off at a dangerous slant through the +procession of moving vehicles, dodging past great trucks and slipping by +the noses of touring cars and coupés with apparent recklessness of +consequences.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191"></a>Aleck, sliding into the driver's seat and forced to lose sight of +King's tall figure because of the urgency of the crowding mass behind, +was moved to curious speculation. As he turned the designated corner, he +was saying to himself with a chuckle: "He always was quick on the +trigger, but I'll be darned if that wasn't about the hastiest move I +ever saw him make. What's he after, anyhow, in this town where he just +told me he didn't know a soul? Well, it's some wait for me, I'll bet."</p> + +<p>If he could have seen his master as that young man plunged along through +the crowd Aleck would have found plenty to interest him. King was doing +his best to pursue and catch up with a figure which he now and again +lost sight of in the throng, so that he slowed his pace lest he go by it +unawares. The fear that he might thus miss and lose it sharpened his +gaze and gave to his face an intent look, so that many people stared at +him as he passed them, wondering what the comely, dark-eyed young man +was after that he was rushing at such a pace.</p> + +<p>There came a moment when King paused, uncertain, his heart standing +still with the certainty that he was off the track and that his quarry +had unconsciously doubled and eluded him. An instant later he drew a +quick breath of relief, his gaze following a slender black figure as it +mounted <a name="Page_192" id="Page_192"></a>the steps of an old church which stood, dingy but still +dignified, close by the highway, its open doors indicating that it had +remained in this downtown district for a purpose. King sprang up the +steps, then paused in the great doorway, beyond which the darkness and +quiet of an empty interior silently invited passers-by to rest and +reflect. At that moment a deep organ note sounded far away upon the +stillness, and King took a step inside, looking cautiously about him. +The figure he pursued had vanished, and after a moment more he crossed +the vestibule and stood, hat in hand, gazing into the dim depths beyond.</p> + +<p>For a little, coming as he had from the strong light of the September +afternoon, he could see absolutely nothing; but as his vision cleared he +was able to make out a small group of people far toward the front of the +spacious interior, and the form of the organist himself before his +manuals low at the right of the choir. But he had to look for some time +before he could descry at the farthermost side of the church a solitary +head bent upon the rail before it. Toward this point the young man +slowly made his way, his heart hammering a most unwonted tattoo within +his broad breast.</p> + +<p>Several pews behind and to one side of the kneeling figure he took his +place, his gaze fastened upon it. He looked his fill, secure in his own +position, <a name="Page_193" id="Page_193"></a>which was in the shadow of a great stone pillar, where the +dim light from the sombre-toned windows did not touch him. And, as he +looked, the conviction he had had since his first meeting with this girl +deepened and strengthened into resolution. He would not lose her again, +no matter what it might cost to hold her. He would not believe a man +could be mistaken in that face, in that exquisite and arresting +personality. There was not such another in the whole wide world.</p> + +<p>Suddenly she turned, and evidently she saw that some one was near her, +though he knew it was not possible that she had recognized him. She sat +quite still for another five minutes, then rose very quietly, gathering +up the remembered black handbag, and moved like a young nun into the +aisle, head downbent. King slipped out of his pew, made a quick circuit +around the pillar, and met her squarely as she came toward him.</p> + +<p>He stood still in her path, and she, looking partially up to pass him +with that complete ignoring of his presence which young women of +breeding employ when strangers threaten to take notice, heard his low +voice: "Please don't run away—from your friend!"</p> + +<p>"Oh—Mr. King!" Her eyes, startled, met his indeed, and into her face, +as she spoke his name, <a name="Page_194" id="Page_194"></a>poured a flood of beautiful colour, at sight of +which King all but lost his head.</p> + +<p>He managed, however, to retain sufficient sanity to grasp her hand after +the fashion approved as the proper sign of cordiality in meeting a +valued acquaintance, and to say, in an outwardly restrained manner: +"Won't you sit down again here? We can talk so much better than +outside—and I must talk with you. You have no idea how hard I have +tried to find you."</p> + +<p>She seemed to hesitate for an instant, but ended by slipping into the +pew by the pillar where King had been sitting, and to which he pointed +her, as the most sheltered spot at hand, where the group of people at +the front of the church were hidden from view, and only the now low and +throbbing notes of the organ could remind the pair that they were not +absolutely alone.</p> + +<p>"This is wonderful—for me," King began, in the hushed tone befitting +such a place—and the tone which suited his feelings as well. "I have +thought of you a million times in these months and longed to know just +how you were looking. Now that I see for myself my mind is a bit +easier—and yet—I'm somehow more anxious about you than ever."</p> + +<p>"There's no reason why you should be anxious about me, Mr. King," she +answered, her eyes re<a name="Page_195" id="Page_195"></a>leasing themselves from his in spite of his effort +to hold them. "I'm doing very well, and—quite enjoying my work. How +about yourself? I hardly need to ask."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm coming on finely, thank you. I've plunged into my work with all +the zest I ever had. Only one thing has bothered me: I seemed unable to +get out of the habit of watching the mails. And they have been mighty +disappointing."</p> + +<p>"You surely couldn't expect," she said, smiling a little, "that once you +were well again you should be pampered with frequent letters."</p> + +<p>"I certainly haven't been pampered. One letter in all this time—"</p> + +<p>"Book agents haven't much time for writing letters. And surely engineers +must be busy people."</p> + +<p>He was silent for a minute, studying her. She seemed, in spite of her +youth and beauty, wonderfully self-reliant. Again, as in the room at the +hospital, her quiet poise of manner struck him. And though she was once +more dressed in the plainest and least costly of attire—as well as he +could judge—he knew that he should be entirely willing to take her +anywhere where he was known, with no mental apologies for her +appearance. This thought immediately put another into his mind, on which +he lost no time in acting.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196"></a>"This is a great piece of luck," said he, and went on hurriedly, trying +to use diplomacy, which always came hard with him: "I don't want it to +slip away too soon. Why couldn't we spend the rest of the day together? +I'm just on my way back home from a piece of work I've been +superintending outside this city. I've plenty of time ahead of me, and +I'm sure the book business can't be so pressing that you couldn't take a +few hours off. If you'll venture to trust yourself to me we'll go off +into the country somewhere, and have dinner at some pleasant place. Then +we can talk things over—all sorts of things," he added quickly, lest +this seem too pointed. "Won't you—please?"</p> + +<p>She considered an instant, then said frankly: "Of course that would be +delightful, and I can't think of a real reason why I shouldn't do it. +What time is it, please?"</p> + +<p>"Only three o'clock. We'll have time for a splendid drive and I'll +promise to get you back at any hour you say—after dinner."</p> + +<p>"It must be early."</p> + +<p>"It shall be. Well, then—will you wait in the vestibule out here two +minutes, please? I'll have the car at the door."</p> + +<p>Thus it happened that Aleck, four blocks away, having just comfortably +settled to the reading of a popular magazine on mechanics, found himself +<a name="Page_197" id="Page_197"></a>summarily ejected from his seat, and sent off upon his own resources +for a number of hours.</p> + +<p>"Take care of yourself, Al, and have a good time out of it if you can," +urged his master, and Aleck observed that King's eyes were very bright +and his manner indicative of some fresh mental stimulus received during +the brief time of his absence. "Have the best sort of a dinner wherever +you like."</p> + +<p>"All right, Mr. King," Aleck responded. "I hope you're going to have a +good time yourself," he added, "after all the work you've done to-day. I +was some anxious for fear you'd do too much."</p> + +<p>"No chance, Aleck, with Doctor Burns's orders what they are. And I +didn't do a thing but stand around and talk with the men. I'm feeling +fit as a fiddle now." And King drove off in haste.</p> + +<p>Back at the church he watched with intense satisfaction Miss Anne +Linton's descent of the dusty steps. The September sunshine was hazily +bright, the air was warmly caressing, and there were several hours ahead +containing such an opportunity as he had not yet had to try at finding +out the things he had wanted to know. Not this girl's +circumstances—though he should be interested in that topic—not any +affairs of hers which she should not choose to tell him; but the future +relationship between herself and him—this was <a name="Page_198" id="Page_198"></a>what he must establish +upon some sort of a definite basis, if it were possible.</p> + +<p>Out through the crowded streets into the suburbs, on beyond these to the +open country, the car took its way with as much haste as was compatible +with necessary caution. Once on the open road, however, and well away, +King paid small attention to covering distance. Indeed, when they had +reached a certain wooded district, picturesque after the fashion of the +semi-mountainous country of that part of the state, he let his car idle +after a fashion most unaccustomed with him, who was usually principally +concerned with getting from one place to another with the least possible +waste of time.</p> + +<p>And now he and Anne Linton were talking as they never had had the chance +to talk before, and they were exploring each other's minds with the zest +of those who have many tastes in common. King was confirming that of +which he had been convinced by her letters, that she was thoroughly +educated, and that she had read and thought along lines which had +intensely interested him ever since he had reached the thinking age. To +his delight he found that she could hold her own in an argument with as +close reasoning, as logical deduction, as keen interpretation, as any +young man he knew. And with it all she showed a certain quality of +ap<a name="Page_199" id="Page_199"></a>preciation of his own side of the question which especially pleased +him, because it proved that she possessed that most desirable power, +rare among those of her sex as he knew them—the ability to hold herself +free from undue bias.</p> + +<p>Yet she proved herself a very girl none the less by suddenly crying out +at sight of certain tall masses of shell-pink flowers growing by the +roadside in a shady nook, and by insisting on getting out to pick them +for herself.</p> + +<p>"It's so much more fun," she asserted, "to choose one's own than to +watch a man picking all the poorest blossoms and leaving the very best."</p> + +<p>"Is that what we do?" King asked, his eyes feasting upon the sight of +her as she filled her arms with the gay masses, her face eager with her +pleasure in them.</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed. Or else you get out a jackknife and hack off great +handfuls of them at once, and bring them back all bleeding from your +ruthless attack."</p> + +<p>"I see. And you gather them delicately, so they don't mind, I suppose. +Yet—I was given to understand that 'Susquehanna' died first. I've +always wondered what you did to her. I'd banked on her as the huskiest +of the lot."</p> + +<p>She flashed a quick look at him, compounded of surprise, mirth, and +something else whose nature <a name="Page_200" id="Page_200"></a>he could not guess. "'Susquehanna' was +certainly a wonderful rose," she admitted.</p> + +<p>"Yet only next morning she was sadly drooping. I know, because I +received a report of her. And I lost my wager."</p> + +<p>"You should have known better," she said demurely, her head bent over +her armful of flowers, "than to make a wager on the life of a rose sent +to a girl who was just coming back to life herself."</p> + +<p>"You weren't so gentle with 'Susquehanna,' then, I take it, as you are +with those wild things you have there."</p> + +<p>"I was not gentle with her at all." Anne lifted her head with a +mischievously merry look. "If you must know—I kissed her—hard!"</p> + +<p>"Ah!" Jordan King sat back, laughing, with suddenly rising colour. "I +thought as much. But I suppose I'm to take it that you did it solely +because she was 'Susquehanna'—not because—"</p> + +<p>"Certainly because she was her lovely self, cool and sweet and a +glorious colour, and she reminded me—of other roses I had known. +Flowers to a convalescent are only just a little less reviving than +food. 'Susquehanna' cheered me on toward victory."</p> + +<p>"Then she died happy, I'm sure."</p> + +<p>He would have enjoyed keeping it up with nonsense of this pleasurable +sort, but as soon as Anne <a name="Page_201" id="Page_201"></a>was back in the car she somehow turned him +aside upon quite different ground, just how he could not tell. He found +himself led on to talk about his work, and he could not discover in her +questioning a trace of anything but genuine interest. No man, however +modest about himself, finds it altogether distressing to have to tell a +charming girl some of his more exciting experiences. In the days of his +early apprenticeship King had spent many months with a contracting +engineer of reputation, who was executing a notable piece of work in a +wild and even dangerous country, and the young man's memory was full of +adventures connected with that period. In contrast with his present +work, which was of a much more prosaic sort, it formed a chapter in his +history to which it stirred him even yet to turn back, and at Anne's +request he was soon launched upon it.</p> + +<p>So the afternoon passed amidst the sights and sounds of the September +country. And now and again they stopped to look at some fine view from a +commanding height, or flew gayly down some inviting stretch of smooth +road. By and by they were at an old inn, well up on the top of the +world, which King had had in mind from the start, and to which he had +taken time, an hour before, to telephone and order things he had hoped +she would like. When the two sat down at a table in a quiet <a name="Page_202" id="Page_202"></a>corner +there were flowers and shining silver upon a snowy cloth, and the food +which soon arrived was deliciously cooked, sustaining the reputation the +place had among motorists. And in the very way in which Anne Linton +filled her position opposite Jordan King was further proof that, in +spite of all evidence to the contrary, she belonged to his class.</p> + +<p>Their table was lighted with shaded candles, and in the soft glow Anne's +face had become startlingly lovely. She had tucked a handful of the +shell-pink wild flowers into the girdle of her black dress, and their +hue was reflected in her cheeks, glowing from the afternoon's drive in +the sun. As King talked and laughed, his eyes seldom off her face, he +felt the enchantment of her presence grow upon him with every minute +that went by.</p> + +<p>Suddenly he blurted out a question which had been in his mind all day. +"I had a curious experience a while back," he said, "when I first got +out into the world. I was in Doctor Burns's car, and we met some people +in a limousine, touring. They stopped to ask about the road, and there +was a girl in the car who looked like you. But—she didn't recognize me +by the slightest sign, so I knew of course it couldn't be you."</p> + +<p>He looked straight at Anne as he spoke, and saw her lower her eyes for a +moment with an odd little smile on her lips. She did not long evade <a name="Page_203" id="Page_203"></a>his +gaze, however, but gave him back his look unflinchingly.</p> + +<p>"It was I," she said. "But I'm not going to tell you how I came to be +there, nor why I didn't bow to you. All I want to say is that there was +a reason for it all, and if I could tell you, you would understand."</p> + +<p>Well, he could not look into her face and not trust her in whatever she +might elect to do, and he said something to that effect. Whereupon she +smiled and thanked him, and said she was sorry to be so mysterious. He +recalled with a fresh thrill how she had looked at him at that strange +meeting, for now that he knew that it was surely she, the great fact +which stayed by him was that she had given him that look to remember, +given it to him with intent, beyond a doubt.</p> + +<p>They came out presently upon a long porch overhanging the shore of a +small lake. The September sun was already low, and the light upon the +blue hills in the distance was turning slowly to a dusky purple. The +place was very quiet, for it was growing late in the tourist season, and +the inn was remote from main highways of travel.</p> + +<p>"Can't we stay here just a bit?" King asked pleadingly. "It won't take +us more than an hour to get back if we go along at a fair pace. We came +by a roundabout way."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204"></a>With each hour that passed he was realizing more fully how he dreaded +the end of this unexpected and absorbing adventure. So far none of his +attempts to pave the way for other meetings, in other towns to which she +might be going in the course of her book selling, had resulted in +anything satisfactory. And even now Anne Linton was shaking her head.</p> + +<p>"I think I must ask you to take me back now," she said. "I want to come +into the house where I am staying not later than I usually do."</p> + +<p>So he had to leave the pleasant, vine-clad porch and take his place +beside her in the car again. It did not seem to him that he was having a +fair chance. But he thought of a plan and proceeded to put it into +execution. He drove steadily and in silence until the lights of the +nearing city were beginning to show faintly in the twilight, with the +sky still rich with colour in the west. Then, at a certain curve in the +road far above the rest of the countryside, he brought the car to a +standstill.</p> + +<p>"I can't bear to go on and end this day," he said in a low voice of +regret. "How can I tell when I shall see you again? Do you realize that +every time I have said a word about our meeting in the future you've +somehow turned me aside? Do you want me to understand that you would +rather never see me again?"</p> + +<p><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205"></a>Her face was toward the distant lights, and she did not answer for a +minute. Then she said slowly: "I should like very much to see you again, +Mr. King. But you surely understand that I couldn't make appointments +with you to meet me in other towns. This has happened and it has been +very pleasant, but it wouldn't do to make it keep happening. Even though +I travel about with a book to sell, I—shall never lose the sense +of—being under the protection of a home such as other girls have."</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't have you lose it—good heavens, no! I only—well—" And now +he stopped, set his teeth for an instant, and then plunged ahead. "But +there's something I can't lose either, and it's—you!"</p> + +<p>She looked at him then, evidently startled. "Mr. King, will you drive +on, please?" she said very quietly, but he felt something in her tone +which for an instant he did not understand. In the next instant he +thought he did understand it.</p> + +<p>He spoke hurriedly: "You don't know me very well yet, do you? But I +thought you knew me well enough to know that I wouldn't say a thing like +that unless I meant all that goes with it—and follows it. You see—I +love you. If—if you are not afraid of a man in a plaster jacket—it'll +come off some day, you know—I ask you to marry me."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206"></a>There was a long silence then, in which King felt his heart pumping +away for dear life. He had taken the bit between his teeth now, +certainly, and offered this girl, of whom he knew less than of any human +being in whom he had the slightest interest, all that he had to give. +Yet—he was so sure he knew her that, the words once out, he realized +that he was glad he had spoken them.</p> + +<p>At last she turned toward him. "You are a very brave man," she said, +"and a very chivalrous man."</p> + +<p>He laughed rather huskily. "It doesn't take much of either bravery or +chivalry for a man to offer himself to you."</p> + +<p>"It must take plenty of both. You are—what you are, in the big world +you live in. And you dare to trust an absolute stranger, whom you have +no means of knowing better, with that name of yours. Think, Mr. Jordan +King, what that name means to you—and to your mother."</p> + +<p>"I have thought. And I offer it to you. And I do know what you are. You +can't disguise yourself—any more than the Princess in the fairy tale. +Do you think all those notes I had from you at the hospital didn't tell +the story? I don't know why you are selling books from door to door—and +I don't want to know. What I do understand is—that you are the first of +your family to do it!"</p> + +<p>"Mr. King," she said gravely, "women are very <a name="Page_207" id="Page_207"></a>clever at one +thing—cleverer than men. With a little study, a little training, a +little education, they can make a brave showing. I have known a shopgirl +who, after six months of living with a very charming society woman, +could play that woman's part without mistake. And when it came to +talking with men of brains, she could even use a few clever phrases and +leave the rest of the conversation to them, and they were convinced of +her brilliant mind."</p> + +<p>"You have not been a shopgirl," he said steadily. "You belong in a home +like mine. If you have lost it by some accident, that is only the +fortune of life. But you can't disguise yourself as a commonplace +person, for you're not. And—I can't let you go out of my life—I +can't."</p> + +<p>Again silence, while the sunset skies slowly faded into the dusky blue +of night, and the lights over the distant city grew brighter and +brighter. A light wind, warmly smoky with the pleasant fragrance of +burning bonfires, touched the faces of the two in the car and blew small +curly strands of hair about Anne Linton's ears.</p> + +<p>Presently she spoke. "I am going to promise to write to you now and +then," she said, "and give you each time an address where you may +answer, if you will promise not to come to me. I am going to tell you +frankly that I want your letters."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208"></a>"You want my letters—but not me?"</p> + +<p>"You put more of yourself into your letters than any one else I know. So +in admitting that I want your letters I admit that I want yourself—as a +good friend."</p> + +<p>"No more than that?"</p> + +<p>"That's quite enough, isn't it, for people who know each other only as +we do?"</p> + +<p>"It's not enough for me. If it's enough for you, then—well, it's as I +thought."</p> + +<p>"What did you think?"</p> + +<p>He hesitated, then spoke boldly: "No woman really wants—a mangled human +being for her own."</p> + +<p>Impulsively she laid her hand on his. Instantly he grasped it. "Please," +she said, "will you never say—or think—that, again?"</p> + +<p>He gazed eagerly into her face, still duskily visible to his scrutiny. +"I won't," he answered, "if you'll tell me you care for me. Oh, don't +you?—don't you?—not one bit? Just give me a show of a chance and I'll +make you care. I've <i>got</i> to make you care. Why, I've thought of nothing +but you for months—dreamed of you, sleeping and waking. I can't stop; +it's too late. Don't ask me to stop—Anne—dear!"</p> + +<p>No woman in her senses could have doubted the sincerity of this young +man. That he was no adept at love making was apparent in the way he +<a name="Page_209" id="Page_209"></a>stumbled over his phrases; in the way his voice caught in his throat; +in the way it grew husky toward the last of this impassioned pleading of +his.</p> + +<p>He still held her hand close. "Tell me you care—a little," he begged of +her silence.</p> + +<p>"No girl can be alone as I am now and not be touched by such words," she +said very gently after a moment's hesitation. "But—promising to marry +you is a different matter. I can't let you rashly offer me so much when +I know what it would mean to you to bring home a—book agent to your +mother!"</p> + +<p>He uttered a low exclamation. "My life is my own, to do with as I +please. If I'm satisfied, that's enough. You are what I want—all I +want. As for my mother—when she knows you—But we'll not talk of that +just yet. What I must know is—do you—can you—care for me—enough to +marry me?" His hand tightened on hers, his voice whispered in her ear: +"Anne, darling—can't you love me? I want you so—oh—I want you so! Let +me kiss you—just once, dear. That will tell you—"</p> + +<p>But she drew her hand gently but efficiently away; she spoke firmly, +though very low: "No—no! Listen—Jordan King. Sometime—by next spring +perhaps, I shall be in the place I call home. When that time comes I +will let you know. If you <a name="Page_210" id="Page_210"></a>still care to, you may come and see me there. +Now—won't you drive on, please?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, if you'll let me—just once—<i>once</i> to live on all those months! +Anne—"</p> + +<p>But, when he would have made action and follow close upon the heels of +pleading he found himself gently but firmly prevented by an uplifted +small hand which did not quite touch his nearing face. "Ah, don't spoil +that chivalry of yours," said her mellow, low voice. "Let me go on +thinking you are what I have believed you are all along. Be patient, and +prove whether this is real, instead of snatching at what might dull your +judgment!"</p> + +<p>"It wouldn't dull it—only confirm it. And—I want to make you remember +me."</p> + +<p>"You have provided that already," she admitted, at which he gave an +ejaculation as of relief—and of longing—and possibly of recognition of +her handling of the whole—from her point of view—rather difficult +situation. At the back of his mind, in spite of his disappointment at +being kept at arm's length when he wanted something much more definite, +was the recognition that here was precisely the show of spirit and +dignity which his judgment approved and admired.</p> + +<p>"I'll let you go, if I must; but I'll come to you—if you live in a +hovel—if you live in a cave—if you live—Oh, I know how you live!"</p> + +<p><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211"></a>"How do I live?" she asked, laughing a little unsteadily, and as if +there were tears in her eyes, though of this he could not be sure.</p> + +<p>"You live in a plain little house, with just a few of the things you +used to have about you; rows of books, a picture or two, and some old +china. Things may be a bit shabby, but everything is beautifully neat, +and there are garden flowers on the table, perhaps white lilacs!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, what a romanticist!" she said, through her soft laughter. "One +would think you wrote novels instead of specifications for concrete +walls. What if you come and find me living with my older sister, who +sews for a living, plain sewing, at a dollar a day? And we have a long +credit account at the grocery, which we can't pay? And at night our +little upstairs room is full of neighbours, untidy, loud-talking, +commonplace women? And the lamp smokes—"</p> + +<p>"It wouldn't smoke; you would have trimmed it," he answered, quickly and +with conviction. "But, even if it were all like that, you would still be +the perfect thing you are. And I would take you away—"</p> + +<p>"If you don't drive on, Mr. King," she interposed gently, "you will soon +be mentally unfit to drive at all. And I must be back before the +dark<a name="Page_212" id="Page_212"></a>ness has quite fallen. And—don't you think we have talked enough +about ourselves?"</p> + +<p>"I like that word," he declared as he obediently set the car in motion. +"Ourselves—that sounds good to me. As long as you keep me with you that +way I'll try to be satisfied. One thing I'm sure of: I've something to +work for now that I didn't have this morning. Oh, I know; you haven't +given me a thing. But you're going to let me come to see you next +spring, and that's worth everything to me. Meanwhile, I'll do my level +best—for you."</p> + +<hr class="fifty" /> + +<p>When he drew up before the door of the church, where, in spite of his +entreaties that he be allowed to take her to her lodging place, Anne +insisted on being left, he felt, in spite of all he had gained that day, +a sinking of the heart. Though the hour was early and the neighbourhood +at this time of day a quiet one, and though she assured him that she had +not far to go, he was unhappy to leave her thus unaccompanied.</p> + +<p>"I wish I could possibly imagine why it must be this way," he said to +himself as he stood hat in hand beside his car, watching Anne Linton's +quickly departing figure grow more and more shadowy as the twilight +enveloped it. "Well, one thing is certain: whatever she does there's a +good and sufficient reason; and I trust her."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<h3>RED HEADED AGAIN</h3> + + +<p>Crowding his hat upon his head with a vigorous jerk after his reluctant +parting with Anne Linton at the church door, Jordan King jumped into his +car and made his way slowly through the streets to the hotel where Aleck +awaited him. For the first few miles out of the city he continued to +drive at a pace so moderate that Aleck more than once glanced +surreptitiously at him, wondering if he were actually going to sleep at +the wheel. It was not until they were beyond the last environs and far +out in the open country that, quite suddenly, the car was released from +its unusual restraint and began to fly down the road toward home at the +old wild speed.</p> + +<p>Somehow or other, after this encounter, King could not settle down to +his work till he had seen Red Pepper Burns. He could not have explained +why this should be so, for he certainly did not intend to tell his +friend of the meeting with Anne Linton, or of the basis upon which his +affairs now stood. But he wanted to see Burns with a sort of <a name="Page_214" id="Page_214"></a>hunger +which would not be satisfied, and he went to look him up one evening +when he himself had returned early from his latest trip to the concrete +dam.</p> + +<p>He found Burns just setting forth on a drive to see a patient in the +country, and King invited himself to go with him, running his own car +off at one side of the driveway and leaping into Burns's machine with +only a gay by-your-leave apology. But he had not more than slid into his +seat before he found that he was beside a man whom he did not know.</p> + +<p>King had long understood that Red Pepper's significant cognomen stood +for the hasty temper which accompanied the coppery hair and hazel eyes +of the man with the big heart. But such exhibitions of that temper as +King had witnessed had been limited to quick explosions from which the +smoke had cleared away almost as soon as the sound of warfare had died +upon the air. He was in no way prepared, therefore, to find himself in +the company of a man who was so angry that he could not—or would +not—speak to one of his best friends.</p> + +<p>"Fine night," began the young man lightly, trying again, after two +silent miles, to make way against the frost in the air. "I don't know +when we've had such magnificent September weather."</p> + +<p>No answer.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215"></a>"I hope you don't mind my going along. You needn't talk at all, you +know—and I'll be quiet, too, if you prefer."</p> + +<p>No answer. King was not at all sure that Burns heard him. The car was +running at a terrific pace, and the profile of the man at the wheel +against the dusky landscape looked as if it were carved out of stone. +The young man fell silent, wondering. Almost, he wished he had not been +so sure of his welcome, but there was no retreating now.</p> + +<p>Five miles into the country they ran, and King soon guessed that their +destination might be Sunny Farm, a home for crippled children which was +Ellen Burns's special charity, established by herself on a small scale a +few years before and greatly grown since in its size and usefulness. +Burns was its head surgeon and its devoted patron, and he was accustomed +to do much operative work in its well-equipped surgery, bringing out +cases which he found in the city slums or among the country poor, with +total disregard for any considerations except those of need and +suffering. King knew that the place and the work were dearer to the +hearts of both Doctor and Mrs. Burns than all else outside their own +home, and he began to understand that if anything had gone wrong with +affairs there Red Pepper would be sure to take it seriously.</p> + +<p>Quite as he had foreseen—since there were few <a name="Page_216" id="Page_216"></a>homes on this road, +which ran mostly through thickly wooded country—the car rushed on to +the big farmhouse, lying low and long in the night, with pleasant lights +twinkling from end to end. Burns brought up with a jerk beside the +central porch, leaped out, and disappeared inside without a word of +explanation to his companion, who sat wondering and looking in through +the open door to the wide hall which ran straight through the house to +more big porches on the farther side.</p> + +<p>Everything was very quiet at this hour, according to the rules of the +place, all but the oldest patients being in bed and asleep by eight +o'clock. Therefore when, after an interval, voices became faintly +audible, there was nothing to prevent their reaching the occupant of the +car.</p> + +<p>In a front room upstairs at one side of the hall two people were +speaking, and presently through the open window Burns was heard to say +with incisive sternness: "I'll give you exactly ten minutes to pack your +bag and go—and I'll take you—to make sure you do go."</p> + +<p>A woman's voice, in a sort of deep-toned wail, answered: "You aren't +fair to me, Doctor Burns; you aren't fair! You—"</p> + +<p>"Fair!" The word was a growl of suppressed thunder. "Don't talk of +fairness—you! You don't know the meaning of the word. You haven't been +<a name="Page_217" id="Page_217"></a>fair to a single kid under this roof, or to a nurse—or to any one of +us—you with your smiles—and your hypocrisy—you who can't be trusted. +That's the name for you—She-Who-Can't-Be-Trusted. Go pack that bag, +Mrs. Soule; I won't hear another word!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Doctor—"</p> + +<p>"Go, I said!"</p> + +<p>Outside, in the car, Jordan King understood that if the person to whom +Burns was speaking had not been a woman that command of his might have +been accompanied by physical violence, and the offending one more than +likely have been ejected from the door by the thrust of two vigorous +hands on his shoulders. There was that in Burns's tone—all that and +more. His wrath was quite evidently no explosion of the moment, but the +culmination of long irritation and distrust, brought to a head by some +overt act which had settled the offender's case in the twinkling of an +eye.</p> + +<p>Burns came out soon after, followed by a woman well shrouded in a heavy +veil.</p> + +<p>King jumped out of the car. "I'm awfully sorry," he tried to say in +Burns's ear. "Just leave me and I'll walk back."</p> + +<p>"Ride on the running board," was the answer, in a tone which King knew +meant that he was requested not to argue about it.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218"></a>Therefore when the woman—to whom he was not introduced—was seated, he +took his place at her feet. To his surprise they did not move off in the +direction from which they had come, but went on over the hills for five +miles farther, driving in absolute silence, at high speed, and arriving +at a small station as a train was heard to whistle far off somewhere in +the darkness.</p> + +<p>Burns dashed into the station, bought a ticket, and had his passenger +aboard the train before it had fairly come to a standstill at the +platform. King heard him say no word of farewell beyond the statement +that a trunk would be forwarded in the morning. Then the whole strange +event was over; the train was only a rumble in the distance, and King +was in his place again beside the man he did not know.</p> + +<hr class="fifty" /> + +<p>Silence again, and darkness, with only the stars for light, and the +roadside rushing past as the car flew. Then suddenly, beside the deep +woods, a stop, and Burns getting out of the car, with the first +voluntary words he had spoken to King that night.</p> + +<p>"Sit here, will you? I'll be back—sometime."</p> + +<p>"Of course. Don't hurry."</p> + +<p>It was an hour that King sat alone, wondering. Where Burns had gone, he +had no notion, and no <a name="Page_219" id="Page_219"></a>sound came back to give him hint. As far as King +knew there was no habitation back there in the depths into which his +companion had plunged; he could not guess what errand took him there.</p> + +<p>At last came a distant crashing as of one making his way through heavy +undergrowth, and the noise drew nearer until at length Burns burst +through into the road, wide of the place where he had gone in. Then he +was at the car and speaking to King, and his voice was very nearly his +own again.</p> + +<p>"Missed my trail coming back," he said. "I've kept you a blamed long +time, haven't I?"</p> + +<p>"Not a bit. Glad to wait."</p> + +<p>"Of course that's a nice, kind lie at this time of night, and when +you've no idea what you've been waiting for. Well, I'll tell you, and +then maybe you'll be glad you assisted at the job."</p> + +<p>He got in and drove off, not now at a furious pace, but at an ordinary +rate of speed which made speech possible. And after a little he spoke +again. "Jord," he said, "you don't know it, but I can be a fiend +incarnate."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe it," refused King stoutly.</p> + +<p>"It's absolutely true. When I get into a red rage I could twist a neck +more easily than I can get a grip on myself. Sometimes I'm afraid I'll +do it. Years back when I had a rush of blood to the head of that sort I +used to take it out in swearing till the <a name="Page_220" id="Page_220"></a>atmosphere was blue; but I +can't do that any more."</p> + +<p>"Why not?" King asked, with a good deal of curiosity.</p> + +<p>"I did it once too often—and the last time I sent a dying soul to the +other world with my curses in its ears—the soul of a child, Jord. I +lost my head because his mother had disobeyed my orders, and the little +life was going out when it might have stayed. When I came to myself I +realized what I'd done—and I made my vow. Never again, no matter what +happened! And I've kept it. But sometimes, as to-night—Well, there's +only one thing I can do: keep my tongue between my teeth as long as I +can, and then—get away somewhere and smash things till I'm black and +blue."</p> + +<p>"That's what you've been doing back in the woods?" King ventured to ask.</p> + +<p>"Rather. Anyhow, it's evened up my circulation and I can be decent +again. I'm not going to tell you what made me rage like the bull of +Bashan, for it wouldn't be safe yet to let loose on that. It's enough +that I can treat a good comrade like you as I did and still have him +stand by."</p> + +<p>"I felt a good deal in the way, but I'm glad now I was with you."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad, too, if it's only that you've discovered at last what manner +of man I am when the <a name="Page_221" id="Page_221"></a>evil one gets hold of me. None of us likes to be +persistently overrated, you know."</p> + +<p>"I don't think the less of you for being angry when you had a just +cause, as I know you must have had."</p> + +<p>"It's not the being angry; it's the losing control."</p> + +<p>"But you didn't."</p> + +<p>"Didn't I?" A short, grim laugh testified to Burns's opinion on this +point. "Ask that woman I put on the train to-night. Jord, on her arm is +a black bruise where I gripped her when she lied to me; I gripped her—a +woman. You might as well know. Now—keep on respecting me if you can."</p> + +<p>"But I do," said Jordan King.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<h3>A STRANGE DAY</h3> + + +<p>"Len, will you go for a day in the woods with me?"</p> + +<p>Ellen Burns looked up from the old mahogany secretary which had been +hers in the southern-home days. She was busily writing letters, but the +request, from her busy husband, was so unusual that it arrested her +attention. Her glance travelled from his face to the window and back +again.</p> + +<p>"I know it's pretty frosty," he acknowledged, "but the sun is bright, +and I'll build you a windbreak that'll keep you snug. I'm aching for a +day off—with you."</p> + +<p>"Artful man! You know I can't resist when you put it that way, though I +ought not to leave this desk for two hours. Give me half an hour, and +tell me what you want for lunch."</p> + +<p>"Cynthia and I'll take care of that. She's putting up the stuff now, +subject to your approval."</p> + +<p>He was off to the kitchen, and Ellen finished the note she had begun, +put away the writing materials <a name="Page_223" id="Page_223"></a>and letters, and ran up to her room. By +the end of the stipulated half hour she was down again, trimly clad in a +suit of brown tweeds, with a big coat for extra warmth and a close hat +and veil for breeze resistance.</p> + +<p>"That's my girl! You never look prettier to my eyes than when you are +dressed like this. It's the real comrade look you have then, and I feel +as if we were shoulder to shoulder, ready for anything that might come."</p> + +<p>"Just as if it weren't always that," she said in merry reproach as she +took her place beside him and the car rolled off.</p> + +<p>"It's always great fun to go off with you unexpectedly like this," she +went on presently. "It seems so long since we've done it. It's been such +a busy year. Is everybody getting well to-day, that you can manage a +whole day?"</p> + +<p>"All but one, and he doesn't need me just now. I could keep busy, of +course, but I got a sudden hankering for a day all alone with you in the +woods; and after that idea once struck me I'd have made way for it +anyhow, short of actually running away from duty."</p> + +<p>"You need it, I know. We'll just leave all care behind and remember +nothing except how happy we are to be together. That never grows old, +does it, Red?"</p> + +<p><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224"></a>"Never!" He spoke almost with solemnity, and gave her a long look as he +said it, which she met with one to match it. "You dear!" he murmured. +"Len, do you know I never loved you so well as I do to-day?"</p> + +<p>"I wonder why?" She was smiling, and her colour, always duskily soft in +her cheek, grew a shade warmer. "Is it the brown tweeds?"</p> + +<p>"It's the brown tweeds, and the midnight-dark hair, and the beautiful +black eyes, and—the lovely soul of my wife."</p> + +<p>"Why, Red, dear—and all this so early in the morning? How will you end +if you begin like this?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know—or care." Something strange looked out of his eyes for a +minute. "I know what I want to say now and I'm saying it. So much of the +time I'm too busy to make love to my wife, I'm going to do it +to-day—all day. I warn you now, so you can sidetrack me if you get +tired of it."</p> + +<p>"I'm very likely to," she said with a gay tenderness. "To have you make +love to me without the chance of a telephone call to break in will be a +wonderful treat."</p> + +<p>"It sure will to me."</p> + +<p>It was a significant beginning to a strange day. They drove for twenty +miles, to find a certain place upon a bluff overlooking a small lake of +un<a name="Page_225" id="Page_225"></a>usual beauty, far out of the way of the ordinary motor traveller. +They climbed a steep hill, coming out of the wooded hillside into the +full sunlight of the late October day, where spread an extended view of +the countryside, brilliant with autumn foliage. The air was crisp and +invigorating, and a decided breeze was stirring upon this lofty point, +so that the windbreak which Burns began at once to build was a necessary +protection if they were to remain long.</p> + +<p>An hour of hard work, at which Ellen helped as much as she was allowed, +established a snug camp, its back against a great bowlder, its windward +side sheltered by a thick barrier of hemlocks cleverly placed, a brisk +bonfire burning in an angle where an improvised chimney carried off its +smoke and left the corner clear and warm.</p> + +<p>"There!" Burns exclaimed in a tone of satisfaction as he threw himself +down upon the pine needle-strewn ground at Ellen's side. "How's this for +a comfortable nest? Think we can spend six contented hours here, my +honey?"</p> + +<p>"Six days if you like. How I wish we could!"</p> + +<p>"So do I. Jove, how I'd like it! I haven't had enough of you to satisfy +me for many a moon. And there's no trying to get it, except by running +away like this."</p> + +<p>"We ought to do it oftener."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226"></a>"We ought, but we can't. At least we couldn't. Perhaps now—"</p> + +<p>He broke off, staring across the valley where the lake lay to the +distant hills, smoky blue and purple in spite of the clear sunlight +which lay upon them.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps now—what?"</p> + +<p>"Well—I might not be able to keep up my activity forever, and the time +might come when I should have to take less work and more rest."</p> + +<p>"But you said 'now.'"</p> + +<p>"Did I? I was just looking ahead a bit. Len, are you hungry, or shall we +wait a while for lunch?"</p> + +<p>"Don't you want a little sleep before you eat? You haven't had too much +of it lately."</p> + +<p>"It would taste rather good—if I might take it with my head in your +lap."</p> + +<p>She arranged her own position so that she could maintain it comfortably, +and he extended his big form at full length upon the rug he had brought +up from the car and upon which she was already sitting. He smiled up +into her face as he laid his head upon her knees, and drew one of her +hands into his. "Now your little boy is perfectly content," he said.</p> + +<hr class="fifty" /> + +<p>It was an hour before he stirred, an hour in which Ellen's eyes had +silently noted that which had escaped them hitherto, a curious change in +his <a name="Page_227" id="Page_227"></a>colour as he lay with closed eyes, a thinness of the flesh over the +cheek bones, dark shadows beneath the eyes. Whether he slept she could +not be sure. But when he sat up again these signs of wear and tear +seemed to vanish at the magic of his smile, which had never been +brighter. Nevertheless she watched him with a new sense of anxiety, +wondering if there might really be danger of his splendid physique +giving way before the rigour of his life.</p> + +<p>She noted that he did not eat heartily at lunch, though he professed to +enjoy it; and afterward he was his old boyish self for a long time. Then +he grew quiet, and a silence fell between the pair while they sat +looking off into the distance, the October sunlight on their heads.</p> + +<p>And then, quite suddenly, something happened.</p> + +<p>"Red! What is the matter?" Ellen asked, startled.</p> + +<p>In spite of the summer warmth of the spot in which they sat her +husband's big frame had begun to quiver and shake before her very eyes. +Evidently he was trying hard to control the strange fit of shivering +which had seized him.</p> + +<p>"Don't be s-scared, d-dear," he managed to get out between rigid jaws. +"It's just a bit of a ch-chill. I'll b-be all right in a m-minute."</p> + +<p>"In all this sunshine? Why, Red!" Ellen caught up the big coat she had +brought to the place and <a name="Page_228" id="Page_228"></a>laid it about his shoulders—"you must have +taken cold. But how could you? Come—we must go at once."</p> + +<p>"N-not just yet. I'll g-get over this s-soon."</p> + +<p>He drew his arms about his knees, clasping them and doing his best to +master the shivering, while Ellen watched him anxiously. Never in her +life with Red had she seen him cold. His rugged frame, accustomed to all +weathers, hardened by years of sleeping beside wide-opened windows in +the wintriest of seasons, was always healthily glowing with warmth when +others were frankly freezing.</p> + +<p>The chill was over presently, but close upon its heels followed +reaction, and Red Pepper's face flushed feverishly as he said, with a +gallant attempt at a smile: "Sit down again a minute, dear, while I tell +you what I'm up against. I wasn't sure, but this looks like it. You've +got to know now, because I'm undoubtedly in for a bit of trouble—and +that means you, too."</p> + +<p>She waited silently, but her hand slipped into his. To her surprise he +drew it gently away. "Try the other one," he said. "It's in better shape +for holding."</p> + +<p>She looked down at the hand he had withdrawn and which now lay upon his +knee. It was the firmly knit and sinewy hand she knew so well, the +<a name="Page_229" id="Page_229"></a>typical hand of the surgeon with its perfectly kept, finely sensitive +fingertips, its broad and powerful thumb, its strong but not too thick +wrist. Not a blemish marked its fair surface, yet—was it very slightly +swollen? She could hardly be sure.</p> + +<p>"Dear, tell me," she begged. "What has happened? Are you hurt—or +ill—and haven't let me know?"</p> + +<p>"I thought it might not amount to anything; it's only a scratch in the +palm. But—"</p> + +<p>"Red—did you get it—operating? On what?"</p> + +<p>He nodded. "Operating. It's the usual way, the thing we all expect to +get some day. I've been lucky so far; that's all."</p> + +<p>"But—you didn't give yourself a scratch; you never have done that?"</p> + +<p>"No, not up to date anyhow. I might easily enough; I just haven't +happened to."</p> + +<p>"Amy didn't?—She couldn't!"</p> + +<p>"She didn't—and couldn't, thank heaven. She'd kill herself if she ever +did that unlucky trick. No, she wasn't assisting this time. It was an +emergency case, early yesterday morning—one of the other men brought in +the case. It was hopeless, but the family wanted us to try."</p> + +<p>"What sort of a case, Red?" Ellen's very lips had grown white.</p> + +<p>"Now see here, sweetheart, I had to tell you be<a name="Page_230" id="Page_230"></a>cause I knew I was in +for a little trouble, but there's no need of your knowing any more than +this about it. It was just an accident—nobody's fault. The blamed +electric lights went off—for not over ten seconds, but it was the wrong +ten seconds. I didn't even know I was scratched till the thing began to +set up a row. I don't even yet understand how I got it in the palm. +That's unusual."</p> + +<p>"Who did it?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not going to tell you. He feels badly enough now, and it wasn't his +fault. He asked me at the time if he had touched me in the dark and I +said no. It was as slight a thing as that. If we'd known it at the time +we'd have fixed it up. We didn't, and that's all there was to it."</p> + +<p>"You must tell me what sort of a case it was, Red."</p> + +<p>He looked down at her. The two pairs of eyes met unflinchingly for a +minute, and each saw straight into the depths of the other. Burns +thought the eyes into which he gazed had never been more beautiful; +stabbed though they were now with intense shock, they were yet speaking +to him such utter love as it is not often in the power of man to +inspire.</p> + +<p>He managed still to talk lightly. "I expect you know. What's the use of +using scientific terms? The case was rottenly septic; never mind the +<a name="Page_231" id="Page_231"></a>cause. But—I'm going to be able to throw the thing off. Just give me +time."</p> + +<p>"Let me see it, Red."</p> + +<p>Reluctantly he turned the hand over, showing the small spot in which was +quite clearly the beginning of trouble. "Doesn't look like much, does +it?" he said.</p> + +<p>"And it is not even protected."</p> + +<p>"What was the use? The infection came at the time."</p> + +<p>"And you did all that work in the windbreak. Oh, you ought not to have +done that!"</p> + +<p>"Nonsense, dear. I wanted to, and I did it mostly with my left hand +anyhow."</p> + +<p>"Your blood must be of the purest," she said steadily.</p> + +<p>"It sure is. I expect I'll get my reward now for letting some things +alone that many men care for, and that I might have cared for, too—if +it hadn't been for my mother—and my wife."</p> + +<p>"You are strong—strong."</p> + +<p>"I am—a regular Titan. Yes, we'll fight this thing through somehow; +only I have to warn you it'll likely be a fight. I'll go to the +hospital."</p> + +<p>"No!" It was a cry.</p> + +<p>"No? Better think about that. Hospital's the best place for such cases."</p> + +<p>"It can't be better than home—when it's like <a name="Page_232" id="Page_232"></a>ours. We'll fight our +fight there, Red—and nowhere else."</p> + +<p>He put one hand to his arm suddenly with an involuntary movement and a +contraction of the brow. But in the next breath he was smiling again. +"Perhaps we'd better be getting back," he admitted. "My head's beginning +to be a trifle unsteady. But, I'm glad a thousand times we've had this +day."</p> + +<p>"Was it wise to take it, dear?"</p> + +<p>"I'm sure of it. What difference could it make? Now we've had it—to +remember."</p> + +<p>She shivered, there in the warm October sunlight. A chill seemed +suddenly to have come into the air, and to have struck her heart.</p> + +<p>No more words passed between them until they were almost home. Then +Ellen said, very quietly: "Red, would you be any safer in the hospital +than at home?"</p> + +<p>"Not safer, but where it would be easier for all concerned, in case +things get rather thick."</p> + +<p>"Easier for you, too?"</p> + +<p>He looked at her. "Do I have to speak the truth?"</p> + +<p>"You must. If you would rather be there—"</p> + +<p>"I would rather be as near you as I can stay. There's no use denying +that. But Van Horn wants me at the hospital."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233"></a>"Is he to look after you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Queer, isn't it? But he wants the job. No," at the unspoken +question in her face, "it wasn't Van. But he came in just as the trouble +began to show and—well, you know we're the best of friends now, and I +think I'd rather have him—and Buller, good old Buller—than anybody +else."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but you won't need them both?" she cried, and then bit her lip.</p> + +<p>"Of course not. But you know how the profession are—if one of them gets +down they all fall over one another to offer their services."</p> + +<p>"They may all offer them, but they will have to come to you. You are +going to stay at home. You shall have the big guest room—made as you +want it. Just tell me what to do—"</p> + +<p>"You may as well strip it," he told her quietly. "And—Len, I'd rather +be right there than anywhere else in the world. I think, when it's +ready, I'll just go to bed. I'd bluff a bit longer if I could, +but—perhaps—"</p> + +<p>"I'm sure you ought," she said as quietly as he. But she was very glad +when the car turned in at the driveway.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER <a name="Page_234" id="Page_234"></a>XV</h2> + +<h3>CLEARED DECKS</h3> + + +<p>Two hours later, under her direction and with her efficient help, +Cynthia and Johnny Carruthers in medical parlance had "stripped" the +guest room, putting it into the cleared bare order most useful for the +purpose needed. If Ellen's heart was heavy as she saw the change made +she let nothing show. And when, presently, she called her husband from +the couch where he had lain, feverish and beginning to be tortured by +pain, and put him between the cool, fresh sheets, she had her reward in +the look he gave, first at the room and then at her.</p> + +<p>"Decks all cleared for action," he commented with persistent +cheerfulness, "and the captain on deck. Well—let them begin to fire; +we're ready. All I know is that I'm glad I'm on your ship. Just pray, +Len, will you—that I keep my nerve?"</p> + +<p>This was the beginning, as Burns himself had foreseen, of that which +proved indeed to be a long fight. Strong of physique though he +unquestionably was, pure as was the blood which flowed in his <a name="Page_235" id="Page_235"></a>veins, +the poison he had received unwittingly and therefore taken no immediate +measures to combat was able to overcome his powers of resistance and +take shattering hold upon his whole organism. There followed day after +day and week after week of prostrating illness, during which he suffered +much torturing pain in the affected hand and arm, with profound +depression of mind and body, though he bore both as bravely as was to +have been expected. Two nurses, Amy Mathewson and Selina Arden, +alternated in attendance upon him, day and night, and Ellen herself was +always at hand to act as substitute, or to share in the care of the +patient when it was more than ordinarily exacting.</p> + +<p>As she watched the powerful form of her husband grow daily weaker before +the assaults of one of the most treacherous enemies modern science has +to face, she felt herself in the grip of a great dread which could not +be for an hour thrown off. She did not let go of her courage; but +beneath all her serenity of manner—remarked often in wonder by the +nurses and physicians—lay the fear which at times amounted to a +conviction that for her had come the end of earthly happiness.</p> + +<p>She was able to appreciate none the less the devoted and skillful +attention given to Burns by his colleagues. Dr. Max Buller had long been +his attached <a name="Page_236" id="Page_236"></a>friend and ally, and of him such service as he now +rendered was to have been counted on. But concerning Dr. James Van Horn, +although Ellen well knew how deeply he felt in Burns's debt for having +in all probability saved his life only a few months earlier, she had had +no notion what he had to offer in return. She had not imagined how warm +a heart really lay beneath that polished urbanity of manner with its +suggestion of coldness in the very tone of his voice—hitherto. She grew +to feel a distinct sense of relief and dependence every time he entered +the door, and his visits were so many that it came to seem as if his +motor were always standing at the curb.</p> + +<p>"You know, Len, Van's a tremendous trump," Burns himself said to her +suddenly, in the middle of one trying night when Doctor Van Horn had +looked in unexpectedly to see if he might ease his patient and secure +him a chance of rest after many hours of pain. "It seems like a queer +dream, sometimes, to open my eyes and see him sitting there, looking at +me as if I were a younger brother and he cared a lot."</p> + +<p>"He does care," Ellen answered positively. "You would be even surer of +it if you could hear him talk with me alone. He speaks of you as if he +loved you—and what is there strange about that? Everybody loves you, +Red. I'm keeping a list of <a name="Page_237" id="Page_237"></a>the people who come to ask about you and +send you things. You haven't heard of half of them. And to-day Franz +telephoned to offer to come and play for you some night when you +couldn't sleep with the pain. He begged to be allowed to do the one +thing he could to show his sympathy."</p> + +<p>"Bless his heart! I'd like to hear him. I often wish my ears would +stretch to reach him in his orchestra." Burns moved restlessly as he +spoke. A fresh invasion of trouble in his hand and arm was reaching a +culmination, and no palliative measures could ease him long. "You've no +idea, Len," he whispered as Ellen's hand strayed through his heavy +coppery locks with the soothing touch he loved well, "what it means to +me to have you stand by me like this. If I give in now it won't be for +want of your supporting courage."</p> + +<p>"It's you who have the courage, Red—wonderful courage."</p> + +<p>He shook his head. "It's just the thought of you—and the Little-Un—and +Bobby Burns—that's all. If it wasn't for you—"</p> + +<p>He turned away his head. She knew the thing he had to fear—the thing +she feared for him. Though his very life was in danger it was not that +which made the threatening depths of black shadow into which he looked. +If he should come out of this fight with a crippled right hand there +<a name="Page_238" id="Page_238"></a>would be no more work for him about which he could care. Neither Van +Horn nor Buller would admit that there was danger of this; but Grayson, +who had seen the hand yesterday; Fields, who was making blood counts for +the case; Lenhart and Stevenson, who had come to make friendly calls +every few days and who knew from Fields how things were going—all were +shaking their heads and saying in worried tones that it looked pretty +"owly" for the hand, and that Van Horn and Buller would do well if they +pulled Burns through at all.</p> + +<p>Outside of the profession Jordan King was closest in touch with Burns's +case. He persistently refused to believe that all would not come out as +they desired. He came daily, brought all sorts of offerings for the +patient's comfort, and always ran up to see his friend, hold his left +hand for a minute and smile at him, without a hint in his ruddy face of +the wrench at the heart he experienced each time at sight of the +steadily increasing devastation showing in the face on the pillow.</p> + +<p>"You're a trump, Jord," Burns said weakly to him one morning. King had +just finished a heart-warming report of certain messages brought from +some of Burns's old chronic patients in the hospital wards, where it was +evident the young man had gone on purpose to collect them. "Every time I +look at you I think what an idiot I was ever <a name="Page_239" id="Page_239"></a>to imagine you needed me +to put backbone into you, last spring."</p> + +<p>"But I did—and you did it. And if you think I showed more backbone to +go through a thing that hardly took it out of me at all than you to +stand this devilish slow torture and weakness—well, it just shows +you've lost your usual excellent judgment. See?"</p> + +<p>"I see that you're one of the best friends a man ever had. There's only +one other who could do as much to keep my head above water—and he isn't +here."</p> + +<p>"Why isn't he? Who is he?" demanded King eagerly. "Tell me and I'll get +him."</p> + +<p>"No, no. He could do no more than is being done. I merely get to +thinking of him and wishing I could see him. It's my old friend and chum +of college days, John Leaver, of Baltimore."</p> + +<p>"The big surgeon I've heard you and Mrs. Burns speak of? Great heavens, +he'd come in a minute if he knew!"</p> + +<p>"I've no doubt he would, but I happen to know he's abroad just now."</p> + +<p>King studied his friend's face, saw that Burns was already weary with +the brief visit, and soon went away. But it was to a consultation with +Mrs. Burns as to the possibility of communicating with Doctor Leaver.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240"></a>"I wrote his wife not long ago of Red's illness," Ellen said, "but I +didn't state all the facts; somehow I couldn't bring myself to do that. +They are in London; they go over every winter. I had a card only +yesterday from Charlotte giving a new address and promising to write +soon."</p> + +<p>"Wasn't he the man you told me of who had a bad nervous breakdown a few +years ago? The one Red had stay with you here until he got back his +nerve?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; and he has been even a more brilliant operator ever since."</p> + +<p>"I remember the whole story; there was a lot of thrill in it as you told +it. How Red made him rest and build up and then fairly forced him to +operate, against his will, to prove to him that he had got his nerve +back? Jove! Do you think that man wouldn't cross the ocean in a hurry if +he thought he could lift his finger to help our poor boy?"</p> + +<p>King's speech had taken on such a fatherly tone of late that Ellen was +not surprised to hear him thus allude to his senior.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Jack Leaver would do anything for Red, but I know Red would never +let us summon him from so far."</p> + +<p>"Summon him from the antipodes—I would. And we don't have to consult +Red. His wish is <a name="Page_241" id="Page_241"></a>enough. Leave it to me, Mrs. Burns; I'll take all the +responsibility."</p> + +<p>She smiled at him, feeling that she must not express the very natural +and unwelcome thought that to call a friend from so far away was to +admit that the situation was desperate. Burns had said many times that +Doctor Van Horn was using the very latest and most acceptable methods +for his relief, and that his confidence in him was absolute. None the +less she knew that the very sight of John Leaver's face would be like +that of a shore light to a ship groping in a heavy fog.</p> + +<p>Within twenty-four hours Jordan King came dashing in to wave a cable +message before her. "Read that, and thank heaven that you have such +friends in the world."</p> + +<p>At a glance her eyes took in the pregnant line, and the first tears she +had shed leaped to her eyes and misted them, so that she had to wipe +them away to read the welcome words again.</p> + +<div class="blockquot">We sail Saturday. Love to Doctor and Mrs. Burns. + +<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Leaver.</span> +</p></div> + +<p>A week later, Burns, waking from an uneasy slumber, opened his eyes upon +a new figure at his bedside. For a moment he stared uncomprehending into +the dark, distinguished face of his old <a name="Page_242" id="Page_242"></a>friend, then put out his +uninjured hand with a weak clutch.</p> + +<p>"Are you real, Jack?" he demanded in a whisper.</p> + +<p>"As real as that bedpost. And mighty glad to see you, my dear boy. They +tell me the worst is over, and that you're improving. That's worth the +journey to see."</p> + +<p>"You didn't come from—England?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I did. I'd come from the end of the world, and you know it! +Why in the name of friendship didn't somebody send me word before?"</p> + +<p>"Who sent it now?"</p> + +<p>"That's a secret. I hoped to be able to do something for you, Red, just +to even up the score a little, but the thing that's really been done has +been by yourself. You put your own clean blood into this tussle and it's +brought you through."</p> + +<p>"I don't feel so very far through yet, but I suppose I'm not quite so +much of a dead fish as I was a week ago. There's only one thing that +bothers me."</p> + +<p>"I can guess. Well, Red, I saw Doctor Van Horn on my way upstairs, and +he tells me you're going to get a good hand out of this. He'll be up +shortly to dress it, and then I may see for myself."</p> + +<p>"That will be a comfort. I've wished a thousand times you might, though +nobody could have given <a name="Page_243" id="Page_243"></a>me better care than these bully fellows have. +But I've a sort of superstition that one look at trouble from Jack +Leaver is enough to make it cut and run."</p> + +<p>By and by Dr. John Leaver came downstairs and joined his wife and Ellen. +His face was grave with its habitual expression, but it lighted as the +two looked up. "He's had about as rough a time as a man can and weather +it," he said; "but I think the trouble is cornered at last, and there'll +be no further outbreak. And the hand will come out better than could +have been expected. He will be able to use it perfectly in time. But it +will take him a good while to build up. He must have a sea voyage—a +long one. That will do you all kinds of good, too," he added, his keen +eyes on the face of his friend's wife.</p> + +<p>"She looks etherealized," Charlotte Leaver said, studying Ellen +affectionately. "You've had a long, anxious time, haven't you, Len, +darling?" Mrs. Leaver went on. "And we knew nothing—we who care more +than anybody in the world. You can't imagine how glad we are to be here +now, even though we can't help a bit."</p> + +<p>"You can help, you do. And I know what it means to Red to have his +beloved friend come to him."</p> + +<p>"Then I hope you know what it means to me to come," said John Leaver.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244"></a>The Leavers stayed for several days, while Burns continued to improve, +and before they left they had the pleasure of seeing him up and +partially dressed, the bandages on his injured hand reduced in extent, +and his eyes showing his release from torture. His face and figure gave +touching evidence of what he had endured, but he promised them that +before they saw him again he would be looking like himself.</p> + +<p>"I wonder," Burns said, on the March day when he first came downstairs +and dropped into his old favourite place in a corner of the big blue +couch, "whether any other fellow was ever so pampered as I. I look like +thirty cents, but I feel, in spite of this abominable limpness, as if my +stock were worth a hundred cents on the dollar. And when we get back +from the ocean trip I expect to be a regular fighting Fijian."</p> + +<p>"You look better every day, dear," Ellen assured him. "And when it's all +over, and you have done your first operation, you'll come home and say +you were never so happy in your life."</p> + +<p>Burns laughed. He looked over at Jordan King, who had come in on purpose +to help celebrate the event of the appearance downstairs. "She promises +me an operation as she would promise the Little-Un a sweetie, eh? Well, +I can't say she isn't right. I was a bit tired when this thing began, +but <a name="Page_245" id="Page_245"></a>when I get my strength back I know how my little old 'lab' and +machine shop will call to me. Just to-day I got an idea in my head that +I believe will work out some day. My word, I know it will!"</p> + +<p>The other two looked at each other, smiling joyously.</p> + +<p>"He's getting well," said Ellen Burns.</p> + +<p>"No doubt of it in the world," agreed Jordan King.</p> + +<p>"Sit down here where I can look at you both," commanded the +convalescent. "Jord, isn't my wife something to look at in that blue +frock she's wearing? I like these things she melts into evenings, like +that smoky blue she has on now. It seems to satisfy my eyes."</p> + +<p>"Not much wonder in that. She would satisfy anybody's eyes."</p> + +<p>"That's quite enough about me," Ellen declared. "The thing that's really +interesting is that your eyes are brighter to-night, Red, than they have +been for two long months. I believe it's getting downstairs."</p> + +<p>"Of course it is. Downstairs has been a mythical sort of place for a +good while. I couldn't quite believe in it. I've thought a thousand +times of this blue couch and these pillows. I've thought of that old +grand piano of yours, and of how it would seem <a name="Page_246" id="Page_246"></a>to hear you play it +again. Play for me now, will you, Len?"</p> + +<p>She sat down in her old place, and his eyes watched her hungrily, as +King could plainly see. To the younger man the love between these two +was something to study and believe in, something to hope for as a +wonderful possibility in his own case.</p> + +<p>When Ellen stopped playing Burns spoke musingly. Speech seemed a +necessity for him to-night—happiness overflowed and must find +expression.</p> + +<p>"I've had a lot of stock advice for my patients that'll mean something I +understand for myself now," he said. He sat almost upright among the +blue pillows, his arm outstretched along the back of the couch, his long +legs comfortably extended. It was no longer the attitude of the invalid +but of the well man enjoying earned repose. "I wonder how often I've +said to some tired mother or too-busy housewife who longed for rest: 'If +you were to become crippled or even forbidden to work any more and made +to rest for good, how happy these past years would seem to you when you +were tired because you had accomplished something.' I can say that now +with personal conviction of its truth. It looks to me as if to come in +dog-tired and drop into this corner with the memory of a good job done +would be the best fun I've ever had."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247"></a>"I know," King nodded. "I learned that, too, last spring."</p> + +<p>"Of course you did. And now, instead of going to work, I've got to take +this blamed sea voyage of a month. Van and Leaver are pretty hard on me, +don't you think? The consolation in that, though, is that my wife needs +it quite as much as I do. I want to tan those cheeks of hers. Len, will +you wear the brown tweeds on shipboard?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I will. How your mind seems to run to clothes to-night. What +will Your Highness wear himself?"</p> + +<p>"The worst old clothes I can find. Then when I get back I'll go to the +tailor's and start life all over again, with the neatest lot of stuff he +can make me—a regular honeymoon effect." Burns laughed, lifting his +chin with the old look of purpose and power touching his thin face.</p> + +<p>"I'm happy to-night," he went on; "there's no use denying it. I'm not +sorry, now it's over, I've had this experience, for I've learned some +things I've never known before and wouldn't have found out any other +way. I know now what it means to be down where life doesn't seem worth +much, and how it feels to have the other fellow trying to pull you out. +I know how the whisper of a voice you love sounds to you in the middle +of a black night, when you think you can't bear another minute of <a name="Page_248" id="Page_248"></a>pain. +Oh, I know a lot of things I can't talk about, but they'll make a +difference in the future. If I don't have more patience with my patients +it'll be because memory is a treacherous thing, and I've forgotten what +I have no business to forget—because the good Lord means me to +remember!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2> + +<h3>WHITE LILACS AGAIN</h3> + + +<p>It was the first day of May. Burns and Ellen had not been at home two +days after their return from the long, slow sea voyage which had done +wonders for them both, when Burns received a long-distance message which +sent him to his wife with his eyes sparkling in the old way.</p> + +<p>"Great luck, Len!" he announced. "I'm to get my first try-out in +operating, after the late unpleasantness, on an out-of-town case. Off in +an hour with Amy for a place two hundred miles away in a spot I never +heard of—promises to be interesting. Anyhow, I feel like a small boy +with his first kite, likely to go straight off the ground hitched to the +tail of it."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad for you, Red. And I wish"—she bit her lip and turned +away—"it may be a wonderful case."</p> + +<p>"That's not what you started to say." He came close, laid a hand on +either side of her face, and turned it up so that he could look into it, +his <a name="Page_250" id="Page_250"></a>lips smiling. "Tell me. I'll wager I know what you wish."</p> + +<p>"No, you can't."</p> + +<p>"That you could go with me—to take Amy's place and assist."</p> + +<p>A flood of colour poured over her face, such a telltale, significant +colour as he had rarely seen there before. She would have concealed it +from him, but he was merciless. A strange, happy look came into his own +face. "Len, don't hide that from me. It's the one thing I've always +wished you'd show, and you never have. I'm such a jealous beggar myself +I've wanted you to care—that way, and I've never been able to discover +a trace of it."</p> + +<p>"But I'm not really jealous in the way you think. How could I be?—with +not the slightest cause. It's only—envy of Amy because she is—so +necessary to you. O Red, I never, never meant to say it!"</p> + +<p>"I'd rather hear you say it than anything else on earth. I'd like to +hear you own that you were mad with jealousy, because I've been eaten up +with it myself ever since I first laid eyes on you. Not that you've ever +given me a reason for it, but because it's my red-headed nature. Now I +must go; but I'll take your face with me, my Len, and if I do a good +piece of work it'll be for love of you."</p> + +<p>"And of your work, Red. I'm not jealous of that; I'm too proud of it."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251"></a>"I know you are, bless you."</p> + +<p>Then he was off, all his old vigour showing in his preparations for the +hurried trip, and as he went away Ellen felt as might those on shore +watching a lusty life-saver put off in a boat to pull for a sinking +ship.</p> + +<hr class="fifty" /> + +<p>Burns and Amy Mathewson were away three days, during which Red kept +Ellen even more closely in touch with himself than usual, by means of +the long wire. When he returned it was with the bearing of a conqueror, +for the case had tried his regained mettle and he had triumphed more +surely than he could have hoped.</p> + +<p>"The hand's as good as new, Len, and the touch not a particle affected. +Van's a trump, and I stopped on the way out to tell him so. He was +pleased as a boy; think of it, Len—my ancient enemy and my new good +friend! And the case is fine as silk. They've a good local man to look +after it till I come again, which will be Thursday. And I'm going to +drive there—and take you—and Jord King and Jord's mother. How's that +for a plan?"</p> + +<p>"It sounds very jolly, Red, but will the Kings go? And why Mrs. King? +Will she care to?"</p> + +<p>"Because I've found some old friends of hers in the place, though I'll +not tell her whom. Besides,<a name="Page_252" id="Page_252"></a> I want to keep on her right side, for +reasons. And Jord's back has been bothering him lately and I've +prescribed a rest. We'll take the Kings' limousine and go in state. +It'll be arranged in five minutes, see if it won't. By the way, Jord +says Aleck's new arm is really going to do him some service besides +improving his looks."</p> + +<p>He pulled her away to the telephone and held her on his knee while he +talked to Jordan King, giving her a laughing hug, when, to judge by the +things he was saying into the transmitter, he had brought about his +effect.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know I sound crazy," he admitted to King, "but you must give +something to a man who has been buried alive and dug up again. I've +taken this notion and I'm going to carry it through. Mrs. King will +enjoy every foot of the way, and you and I will jump out and pick apple +blossoms for the ladies whenever they ask. It's a peach of a plan, and +the whole idea is to minister to my pride. I want to arrive in a great +prince of a car like yours and impress the natives down there. See? Yes, +go and put it up to your mother, and then call me up. Don't you dare say +no!"</p> + +<p>"No wonder he's astonished," Ellen commented while they waited. "For +you, who are never content except when you're at the steering wheel, to +ask Jordan, who is another just like you, <a name="Page_253" id="Page_253"></a>to elect to travel in a +limousine with a liveried chauffeur—well, I admit I am puzzled myself."</p> + +<p>"Why, it's simple enough. I want to take you and Mrs. Alexander King. +She wouldn't go a step in Jord's roadster at his pace. And if she would, +and we went in pairs, Jord would be always wanting to change off and +take you with him—and as you very well know I'm not made that way. Stop +guessing, Len, and prepare yourself to break down Mrs. King's +opposition, if she makes any—which I don't expect."</p> + +<p>Mrs. King made no opposition, or none which her son thought best to +convey to the Burnses, and the trip was arranged.</p> + +<p>"Is there a good hotel in the place?" Ellen asked.</p> + +<p>"No hotel within miles—nor anything else. We're to stay overnight with +the family. You won't mind. They can put us up pretty comfortably, even +if not just as we're accustomed to be." Burns's eyes were twinkling, and +he refused to say more on the subject.</p> + +<p>It did not matter. It was early May, and the world was a wilderness of +budding life, and to go motoring seemed the finest way possible to get +into sympathy with spring at her loveliest. And although Ellen would +have much preferred to drive alone with her husband in his own car, she +found <a name="Page_254" id="Page_254"></a>herself anticipating the affair, as it was now arranged, with not +a little curiosity to stimulate her interest. Mrs. Alexander King, for +her son's sake, was sure to be a complaisant and agreeable companion, +and Ellen was glad to feel that such a pleasure might come her way.</p> + +<p>"This is great stuff!" exulted Jordan King early on Thursday morning as +the big, shining car, standing before Burns's door, received its full +complement of passengers. "Mother and I are tremendously honoured, +aren't we, mother?"</p> + +<p>"Even though we had the audacity to invite ourselves and ask for this +magnificent car?" Burns inquired, grasping Mrs. Alexander King's gloved +hand, and smiling at her as her delicate face was lifted to him with a +look of really charming greeting. He knew well enough that she liked him +in spite of certain pretty plain words he had said to her in the past, +and he had prepared himself to make her like him still better on this +journey together. "I'm the one who is responsible, you know. I've merely +broken out in a new place."</p> + +<p>"We appreciate your caring to include us in your party," Mrs. King said +cordially. "The car is all too little used, for Jordan prefers his own, +and I go about mostly in the small coupe. I have never taken so long a +drive as you plan, and it will doubtless be a pleasant experience. I see +so little of <a name="Page_255" id="Page_255"></a>my son I am happy to be with him on such a trip."</p> + +<p>"Altogether we're mightily pleased with the whole arrangement," declared +Jordan King, regarding Mrs. Burns with high approval. "Mother, did you +ever see a more distinguished-looking pair?"</p> + +<p>"In spite of our brown faces?" Ellen challenged him gayly.</p> + +<p>"My wife's face simply turns peachy when she tans. I look like an +Indian," observed Burns, bestowing certain professional luggage where it +would be most out of the way.</p> + +<p>"That's it; you've said it. Great Indian Chief go make big medicine for +sick squaw; take along whole wigwam; wigwam tickled to death to go!" And +King settled himself with an air of complete satisfaction.</p> + +<p>He had had no word from Anne Linton for nearly two months, and was as +restless as a young man may well be when his affairs do not go to please +him. She had kept her promise and had written from time to time, but +though her letters were the most interesting human documents King had +ever dreamed a woman could write, they were, from the point of view of +the suitor, extremely unsatisfying. As she had agreed, she had given him +with each letter an address to which he might send an im<a name="Page_256" id="Page_256"></a>mediate reply, +and he had made the most of each such opportunity; but, since it takes +two to seal a bargain, he had not been able to feel his cause much +advanced by all his efforts. He had welcomed this chance to accompany +Burns as a diversion from his restless thoughts, for a few days' +interval in his engineering plans, caused by a delay in the arrival of +certain necessary material, was making him wild with eagerness for +something—anything—to happen.</p> + +<p>Two hundred miles in a high-powered car over finely macadamized roads +are more quickly and comfortably covered in these days than a +thirty-mile drive behind horses over such country highways as existed a +decade ago. Aleck, at the wheel, his master's orders in his willing ears +from time to time, gradually accelerated his rate of speed until by the +end of the first two hours he was carrying his party along at a pace +which Mrs. King had frequently condemned as one which would be to her +unbearable. Burns and King exchanged glances more than once as the car +flew past other travellers, and the good lady, talking happily with +Ellen or absorbed in some far-reaching view, took no note of the fact +that she was annihilating space with a smooth swiftness comparable only +to the flight of some big, strong-winged bird.</p> + +<p>"Over halfway there, and plenty of time for <a name="Page_257" id="Page_257"></a>lunch," Burns announced. +"And here's the best roadside inn in the country. If it hadn't been for +our coming this way I should have suggested bringing our own hampers, +but I wanted you to have some of this little Englishman's brook trout +and hot scones."</p> + +<p>Mrs. King enjoyed that hot and delicious meal as she had seldom enjoyed +a luncheon anywhere. As she sat at the faultlessly served table, her +eyes travelling from the wide view at the window to the faces of her +companions, she grew more and more cheerful in manner, and was even +heard to laugh softly aloud now and then at one of Burns's gay quips, +turning to Ellen in appreciation of her husband's wit, or to Jordan +himself as he came back at his friend with a rejoinder worth hearing.</p> + +<p>"This is doing my mother a world of good," King said in Ellen's ear as +the party came out on a wide porch to rest for a half hour before taking +to the car again. "I don't know when I've seen her expand like this and +seem really to be forgetting her cares and sorrows."</p> + +<p>"It's a pleasure to watch her," Ellen agreed. "Red vowed this morning +that he meant to bring about that very thing, and he's succeeding much +better than I had dared to hope."</p> + +<p>"Who wouldn't be jolly in a party where Red was one? Did you ever see +the dear fellow so absolutely <a name="Page_258" id="Page_258"></a>irresistible? Sometimes I think there's a +bit of hypnotism about Red, he gets us all so completely."</p> + +<p>"What are you two whispering about?" said a voice behind them, and they +turned to look into the brilliant hazel eyes both were thinking of at +the moment.</p> + +<p>"You," King answered promptly.</p> + +<p>"Rebelling against the autocracy of the Indian Chief?"</p> + +<p>"No. Prostrating ourselves before his bulky form. He's some Indian +to-day."</p> + +<p>"He will be before the day is over, I promise you. He'll call a council +around the campfire to-night, and plenty pipes will be smoked. Everybody +do as Big Chief says, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Sure thing, Geronimo; that's what we came for."</p> + +<p>"You don't know what you came for. Absolutely preposterous this thing +is—surgeon going to visit his case and bringing along a lot of people +who don't know a mononuclear leucocyte from an eosinophile cell."</p> + +<p>"Do you know a vortex filament from a diametral plane?" demanded King.</p> + +<p>Burns laughed. "Come, let's be off! I must spare half an hour to show +Mrs. King a certain view somewhat off the main line."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259"></a>The afternoon was gone before they could have believed it, detours +though there were several, as there usually are in a road-mending +season. As the car emerged from a long run through wooded country and +passed a certain landmark carefully watched for by Red Pepper, he spoke +to Aleck.</p> + +<p>"Run slowly now, please. And be ready to turn to the left at a point +that doesn't show much beforehand."</p> + +<p>They were proceeding through somewhat sparsely settled country, though +marked here and there by comfortable farmhouses of a more than +ordinarily attractive type—apparently homes of prosperous people with +an eye to appearances. Then quite suddenly the car, rounding a turn, +came into a different region, one of cultivated wildness, of studied +effects so cleverly disguised that they would seem to the unobservant +only the efforts of nature at her best. A long, heavily shaded avenue of +oaks, with high, untrimmed hedges of shrubbery on each side, curved +enticingly before them, and all at once, Burns, looking sharply ahead, +called, "There, by that big pine, Aleck—to the left." In a minute more +the car turned in at a point where a rough stone gateway marked the +entrance to nothing more extraordinary than a pleasant wood.</p> + +<p>"Patient lives in a hut in the forest?" King in<a name="Page_260" id="Page_260"></a>quired with interest. +"Or a rich man's hunting lodge?"</p> + +<p>"You'll soon see." Burns's eyes were ahead; a slight smile touched his +lips.</p> + +<p>The car swept around curve after curve of the wood, came out upon the +shore of a small lake and, skirting it halfway round, plunged into a +grove of pines. Then, quite without warning, there showed beyond the +pines a long, white-plumed row of small trees of a sort unmistakable—in +May. Beside the row lay a garden, gay with all manner of spring flowers, +and farther, through the trees, began to gleam the long, low outlines of +a great house.</p> + +<p>"Stop just here, Aleck, for a minute," Burns requested, and the car came +to a standstill. Burns looked at Jordan King.</p> + +<p>"Ever see that row of white lilacs before, Jord?" he asked with +interest.</p> + +<p>King was staring at it, a strange expression of mingled perplexity and +astonishment upon his fine, dark face. After a minute he turned to +Burns.</p> + +<p>"What—when—where—" he stammered, and stopped, gazing again at the +lilac hedge and the box-bordered beds with their splashes of bright +colour.</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know what, when, or where, if you don't," Burns returned.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261"></a>But evidently King did know, or it came to him at that instant, for he +set his lips in a certain peculiar way which his friend understood meant +an attempt at quick disguise of strong feeling. He gave his mother one +glance and sat back in his seat. Then he looked again at Burns. "What is +this, anyway?" he asked rather sternly. "The home of your patient, or a +show place you've stopped to let us look at?"</p> + +<p>"My patient's in the house up there. Drive on, Aleck, please. They'll be +expecting us at the back of the house, where the long porches are, and +where they're probably having afternoon tea at this minute." He glanced +at his watch. "Happy time to arrive, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>Ellen found herself experiencing a most extraordinary sensation of +excitement as the car rounded the drive and approached the porch, where +she could see a number of people gathered. The place was not more +imposing than many with which she was familiar, and if it had been the +home of one of the world's greatest there would have been nothing +disconcerting to her in the prospect. But something in her husband's +manner assured her that he had been preparing a surprise for them all, +and she had no means of guessing what it might be. The little hasty +sketch of lilac trees against a spring sky, though she had seen it, had +naturally made <a name="Page_262" id="Page_262"></a>no such impression upon her as upon King, and she did +not even recall it now.</p> + +<p>The car rolled quietly up to the porch steps, and immediately a tall +figure sprang down them. "It's Gardner Coolidge, my old college friend, +Len," Burns said in his wife's ear. "Remember him?" The afternoon +sunlight shone upon the smooth, dark hair and thin, aristocratic face of +a man who spoke eagerly, his quick glance sweeping the occupants of the +car.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. King! This is a great pleasure, I assure you—a great pleasure. +Mrs. Burns—we are delighted. And this is your son, Mrs. King—welcome +to you, my dear sir! Red, no need to say we're glad to see you back. Let +me help you, Mrs. King. Don't tell me you wouldn't have known me; that +would be a blow. Alicia"—he turned to the graceful figure approaching +across the porch to meet the elder lady of the party as she came up the +steps upon the arm of the man who had taken her from the car—"Mrs. +King, this is my wife."</p> + +<p>Red Pepper Burns, laughing and shaking hands warmly with Alicia +Coolidge, was watching Mrs. Alexander King as, after the first look of +bewilderment, she cried out softly with pleasure at recognizing the son +of an old friend.</p> + +<p>"But it has all been kept secret from me," she was saying. "I had no +possible idea of where we <a name="Page_263" id="Page_263"></a>were coming, and I am sure my son had not." +She turned to that son, but she could not get his attention, for the +reason that his astonished gaze was fastened upon a person who had at +that moment appeared in the doorway and paused there.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + +<h3>RED'S DEAREST PATIENTS</h3> + + +<p>Jordan King looked, and looked again, and it was a wonder he did not rub +his eyes to make sure he was fully awake. As he looked the figure in the +doorway came forward. It was that of a girl in a white serge coat and +skirt, with a smart little white hat upon her richly ruddy hair, and the +look, from head to foot, of one who had just returned to a place where +she belonged. And the next instant Anne Linton was greeting Ellen Burns +and coming up to be presented to Mrs. Alexander King.</p> + +<p>"This is my little sister, Mrs. King," said Gardner Coolidge, smiling, +and putting his arm about the white-serge-clad shoulders. "She is your +hostess, you know. Alicia and I are only making her a visit."</p> + +<p>"I am so glad you are here, Mrs. King," said a voice Jordan King well +remembered, and Anne Linton's eyes looked straight into those of her +oldest guest, whose own were puzzled.</p> + +<p>"I think," said Mrs. King, holding the firm <a name="Page_265" id="Page_265"></a>young hand which she had +taken, "I have seen you before, my dear, though my memory—"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mrs. King," the girl replied—and there was not the smallest +shadow of triumph discernible in her tone or look—"you have. I came to +see your son in the hospital, with Mrs. Burns, just before I left. It's +not strange you have forgotten me, for we went away almost at once. We +are so delighted to have you come to see us. Isn't it delightful that +you knew our mother so well at school?"</p> + +<p>Well, it came Jordan King's turn in the end, although Anne Linton, so +extraordinarily labelled "hostess" by her brother, discharged every duty +of greeting her other guests before she turned to him. Meanwhile he had +stood, frankly staring, hat in hand and growing colour on his cheek, +while his eyes seemed to grow darker and darker under his heavily marked +brows. When Anne turned to him he had no words for her, and hardly a +smile, though his good breeding came to his rescue and put him through +the customary forms of action, dazed though he yet was. He found himself +presented to other people on the porch, whom he recognized as +undoubtedly those whom he had met in the passing car at the time when he +was in doubt as to Anne's identity. Her aunt, uncle, and cousins they +proved to be, though the young man whom he remembered as being present +on that <a name="Page_266" id="Page_266"></a>occasion was now happily absent. Jordan King found himself +completely reconciled to this at once.</p> + +<p>"How is our patient?" Burns said to Anne at the first opportunity. +"Shall I go up at once?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, please wait a minute, Doctor Burns; I want to go with you, and I +must see my guests having some tea first."</p> + +<p>There followed, for King, what seemed an interminable interval of time, +during which he was forced to sit beside one of Anne's girl cousins—and +a very pretty girl she was, too, only he didn't seem able to appreciate +it—drinking tea, and handing sugar, and doing all the proper things. In +the midst of this Anne vanished with Red Pepper at her heels, leaving +the tea table to Mrs. Coolidge. At this point, however, King found +himself glad to listen to Miss Stockton.</p> + +<p>"I don't suppose anybody in the world but Anne Linton Coolidge would +have thought of sending two hundred miles for a surgeon to operate on +her housekeeper," she was saying when his attention was arrested by her +words. "But she thinks such a lot of Timmy—Mrs. Timmins—she would pay +any sum to keep her in the world. She was Anne's nurse, you see, and of +course Anne is fond of her. And I'm sure we're glad she did send for +him, for it gave us the pleasure of meeting Doctor Burns, and of course +we understand now <a name="Page_267" id="Page_267"></a>why she thought nobody else in the world could pull +Timmy through. He's such an interesting personality, don't you think so? +We're all crazy about him."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, everybody's crazy about him," King admitted readily. "And +certainly two hundred miles isn't far to send for a surgeon these days."</p> + +<p>"Of course not—only I don't suppose it's done every day for one's +housekeeper, do you? But nobody ever knows what Anne's going to +do—least of all now, when she's just back, after the most extraordinary +performance." She stopped, looking at him curiously. "I suppose you know +all about it—much more than we, in fact, since you met her when she was +in that hospital. Did you ever hear of a rich girl's doing such a thing +anyway? Going off to sell books for a whole year just because"—she +stopped again, and bit her lip, then went on quickly: "Everybody knows +about it, and you would be sure to hear it sooner or later. Doctor Burns +knows, anyhow, and—"</p> + +<p>"Please don't tell me anything I oughtn't to hear," Jordan's sense of +honour impelled him to say. He recognized the feminine type before him, +and though he longed to know all about everything he did not want to +know it in any way Anne would not like.</p> + +<p>But there was no stopping the fluffy-haired <a name="Page_268" id="Page_268"></a>young person. "Really, +everybody knows; the countryside fairly rang with it a year ago. You +might even have read it in the papers, only you wouldn't remember. A +girl book agent killed herself in Anne's house here because Anne +wouldn't buy her book. Did you ever hear of anything so absurd as Anne's +thinking it was her fault? Of course the girl was insane, and Anne had +absolutely nothing to do with it. And then Anne took the girl's book and +went off to sell it herself—and find out, she said, how such things +could happen. I don't know whether she found out." Miss Stockton laughed +very charmingly. "All I know is we're tremendously thankful to have her +back. Nothing's the same with her away. We don't know if she'll stay, +though. Nobody can tell about Anne, ever."</p> + +<p>"Is this your home, too?" King managed to ask. His brain was whirling +with the shock of this astonishing revelation. He wanted to get off by +himself and think about it.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, indeed, no such luck. We live across the lake in a much less +beautiful place, only of course we're here a great deal when Anne's +home. My mother would be a mother to Anne if Anne would let her, but +she's the most independent creature—prefers to live here with just +Timmy and old Campbell, the butler who's been with the <a name="Page_269" id="Page_269"></a>family since +time began. Timmy's more than a housekeeper, of course. Anne's made +almost a real chaperon out of her, and she is very dignified and nice."</p> + +<p>King would have had the entire family history, he was sure, if a +diversion had not occurred in the nature of a general move to show the +guests to their rooms, with the appearance of servants, and the removal +of luggage. In his room presently, therefore, King had a chance to get +his thoughts together. One thing was becoming momentarily clear to him: +his being here was with Anne's permission—and she was willing to see +him; she had kept her promise. As for all the rest, he didn't care much. +And when he thought of the moment during which his mother had looked so +kindly into Anne's eyes, not recognizing her, he laughed aloud. Let Mrs. +King retreat from that position now if she wanted to. As for himself, he +was not at all sure that he cared a straw to have it thus so clearly +proved that Anne was what she had seemed to be. Had he not known it all +along? His heart sang with the thought that he had been ready to marry +her, no matter what her position in the world.</p> + +<p>And now he wondered how many hours it would be before he should have his +chance to see her alone, if for but five minutes. Well, at least he +could look at her. And that, as he descended the <a name="Page_270" id="Page_270"></a>stairs with the +others, he found well worth doing. Anne and Gardner Coolidge were +meeting them at the foot, and the young hostess had changed her white +outing garb for a most enchanting other white, which showed her round +arms through soft net and lace and made her yet a new type of girl in +King's thought of her.</p> + +<p>She had a perfectly straightforward way of meeting his eyes, though her +own were bewildering even so, without any coquetry in her use of them. +She was not blushing and shy, she was self-possessed and radiant. King +could understand, as he looked at her now, how she had felt over that +affair of the tragedy suddenly precipitated into her life, and what +strength of character it must have taken to send her out from this +secluded and perfect home into a rough world, that she might find out +for herself "how such things could happen." And as he watched her, +playing hostess in this home of hers, looking after everybody's comfort +with that ease and charm which proclaims a lifetime of previous training +and custom, his heart grew fuller and fuller of pride and love and +longing.</p> + +<p>The dinner hour passed, a merry hour at a dignified table, served by the +old butler who made a rite of his service, his face never relaxing +though the laughter rang never so contagiously. Burns and Coolidge were +the life of the company, the lat<a name="Page_271" id="Page_271"></a>ter seeming a different man from the +one who had come to consult his old chum as to the trouble in his life. +Mrs. Coolidge, quiet and very attractive in her reserved, fair beauty, +made an interesting foil to Ellen Burns, and the two, beside the rather +fussy aunt and cousins, seemed to belong together.</p> + +<p>"Anne, we must show Doctor Burns our plans for the cottage," Coolidge +said to his sister as they left the table. He turned to Ellen, walking +beside her. "She's almost persuaded us to build on a corner of her own +estate—at least a summer place, for a starter. You know Red prescribed +for us a cottage, and we haven't yet carried out his prescription But +this sister of mine, since she met him, has acquired the idea that any +prescription of his simply has to be filled, and she won't let Alicia +and me alone till we've done this thing. Shall we all walk along down +there? There'll be just about time before dark for you to see the site, +and the plans shall come later."</p> + +<p>The whole party trooped down the steps into the garden. King was a +clever engineer, but he could not do any engineering which seemed to +count in this affair. Never seeming to avoid him, Anne was never where +he could get three words alone with her. She devoted herself to his +mother, to Ellen, or to Burns himself, and none of these people gave him +any help. Not that he wanted them to. He <a name="Page_272" id="Page_272"></a>bided his time, and meanwhile +he took some pleasure in showing his lady that he, too, could play his +part until it should suit her to give him his chance.</p> + +<p>But when, as the evening wore on, it began to look as if she were +deliberately trying to prevent any interview whatever, he grew unhappy. +And at last, the party having returned to the house and gathered in a +delightful old drawing-room, he took his fate in his hands. At a moment +when Anne stood beside Red Pepper looking over some photographs lying on +the grand piano, he came up behind them.</p> + +<p>"Miss Coolidge," he said, "I wonder if you would show me that lilac +hedge by moonlight."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid there isn't any moon," she answered with a merry, +straightforward look. "It will be as dark as a pocket down by that +hedge, Mr. King. But I'll gladly show it to you to-morrow morning—as +early as you like. I'm a very early riser."</p> + +<p>"As early as six o'clock?" he asked eagerly.</p> + +<p>She nodded. "As early as that. It is a perfect time on a May morning."</p> + +<p>"And you won't go anywhere now?"</p> + +<p>"How can I?" she parried, smiling. "These are my guests."</p> + +<p>Burns glanced at his friend, his hazel eyes full of suppressed laughter. +"Better be contented with <a name="Page_273" id="Page_273"></a>that, old fellow. That row of lilacs will be +very nice at six o'clock to-morrow morning. Mayn't I come, too, Miss +Coolidge?"</p> + +<p>"Of course you may." Her sparkling glance met his. Evidently they were +very good friends, and understood each other.</p> + +<p>"If he does," said King, in a sort of growl, "he'll have something to +settle with me."</p> + +<p>He went to bed in a peculiar frame of mind. Why had she wanted to waste +all these hours when at nine in the morning the party was to leave for +its return trip? Well, he supposed morning would come sometime, though +it seemed, at midnight, a long way off.</p> + +<p>"Want me to call you at five-thirty, Jord?" Burns had inquired of him at +parting.</p> + +<p>"No, thanks," he had replied. "I'll not miss it."</p> + +<p>"A fellow might lie awake so long thinking about it that he'd go off +into a sound sleep just before daylight, and sleep right through his +early morning appointment," urged his loyal friend. "Better let me—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, you go on to bed!" requested King irritably.</p> + +<p>"No gratitude to one who has brought all this to pass, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Heaps of it. But this evening has been rather a facer."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274"></a>"Not at all. There were a dozen times when you might have rushed in and +got a little quiet place all to yourself, with only the stars looking +on. Plenty of openings."</p> + +<p>"I didn't see 'em. You were always in the way."</p> + +<p>"I was! Well, I like that. Had to be ordinarily attentive to my hostess, +hadn't I? It wasn't for me to take shy little boys by the hand and lead +them up to the little girls they fancied."</p> + +<p>"I don't want to be led up by the hand, thank you. Good-night!"</p> + +<hr class="fifty" /> + +<p>King was up at daybreak, which in May comes reasonably early. Stealing +down through the quiet house, the windows of which seemed to be all wide +open to the morning air, he came out upon the porch and took the path to +the lilac hedge. Arrived there at only twenty minutes before the +appointed hour, he had so long a wait that he began to grow both +impatient and chagrined. At quarter-past six he was feeling very much +like stalking back to the house and retiring to his room, when the low +sound of a motor arrested him, and he wheeled, to discover a long, low, +gray car, of a type with which he was not familiar, sailing gracefully +around the long curve of the driveway toward him. A trim figure in gray, +with a small gray velvet hat pulled close over auburn hair, was at the +<a name="Page_275" id="Page_275"></a>wheel, and a vivid face was smiling at him. But the air of the driver +as she drew up beside him was not at all sentimental, rather it was +businesslike.</p> + +<p>"I'm awfully sorry to be late," she said, "but I couldn't possibly help +it. I got up at four, to make a call I had to make and be back, but I +was detained. And even now I must be off again, without any lingering by +lilac hedges. What shall we do about it?"</p> + +<p>"I'll go with you." And King stepped into the car.</p> + +<p>"With or without an invitation?" Her eyes were laughing, though her lips +had sobered.</p> + +<p>"With or without. And you know you came back for me."</p> + +<p>"I came back for a basket of things I must get from the house. Also, of +course, to explain my detention."</p> + +<p>"Out selling books, I suppose?" he questioned, not caring much what he +said, now that he had her to himself. "You must make a great impression +as a book agent. If only you had tried that way in our town. And I—I +took you in my car under the pleasant impression that I was giving you a +treat—on that first trip, you know. By the second trip I had acquired a +sneaking suspicion that motoring wasn't such a novelty to you as I had +at first supposed."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276"></a>They had flown around the remaining curves and were at a rear door of +the house. Anne jumped out, was gone for ten minutes or so, and emerged +with a servant following with a great hamper. This was bestowed at +King's feet, and the car was off again, Anne driving with the ease of a +veteran.</p> + +<p>"You see," she explained, "late last evening I had news of the serious +illness of a girl friend of mine. I went to see her, but after I came +back I couldn't be easy about her, and so I got up quite early this +morning and went again. She was much better, precisely as Doctor Burns +had assured me she would be. By and by perhaps I shall learn to trust +him as absolutely as all the rest of you do."</p> + +<p>"Burns! You don't mean to say you had him out to see a case last +night—after—"</p> + +<p>She nodded, and her profile, under the snug gray hat, was a little like +that of a handsome and somewhat mischievous but strong-willed boy. "Was +that so dreadful of me—as a hostess? I admit that a doctor ought to be +allowed to rest when he is away from home, but I knew that he was just +back from a long voyage and was feeling fit as a fiddle, as he himself +said. And there is really no very competent man in the town where my +friend is ill; it was such a wonderful chance for her to have great +skill at her service. And such skill! Oh, how he <a name="Page_277" id="Page_277"></a>went to work for her! +It made one feel at once that something was being done, where before +people had merely tried to do things."</p> + +<p>King was making rapid calculation. At the end of it, "Would you mind +telling me whether you have had any sleep at all?" he begged.</p> + +<p>She turned her face toward him for an instant. "Do I look so haggard and +wan?" she queried with a quick glance. "Yes, I had a good two hours. And +I'm so happy now to know that Estelle is sleeping quietly that it's much +better than to have slept myself."</p> + +<p>"Do you do this sort of thing often?"</p> + +<p>"Not just such spectacular night work, but I do try to see that a little +is done to look after a few people who have had a terribly hard time of +it. But this is all—or mostly—since I came back from my year away. I +learned just a few things during that year, you know."</p> + +<p>"Your cousin—do you mind?—gave me just a bit of an idea why you went," +he ventured.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Leila Stockton." Her lips took on an amused curl. "Of course Leila +would. She—chatters. But she's a dear girl; it's just that she can't +easily get a new point of view."</p> + +<p>He pressed her with his questions, for his discernment told him that it +was of no use, while they were flying along the road at this pace, with +a hamper at <a name="Page_278" id="Page_278"></a>their feet—or at his feet, crowding him rather +uncomfortably and forcing him to sit with cramped legs—no use for him +to talk of the subject uppermost in his anxious mind. So he got from +her, as well as he could, the story of the year, and presently had her +telling him eagerly of the people she had met, and the progress she had +made in the study of human beings. It was really an engrossing tale, +quietly as she told it, and many as were the details he saw that she +kept back.</p> + +<p>"I found out one thing very early," she said. "I knew that I could never +come back and live as I had lived before, with no thought of any one but +myself."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe you had ever done that."</p> + +<p>"I had—I had, if ever any one did. I went away to school in Paris for +two years; I wouldn't go to college—how I wish I had! I was the gayest, +most thoughtless girl you ever knew until—the thing happened that sent +my world spinning upside down. Why, Mr. King, I was so selfish and so +thoughtless that I could turn that poor girl away from my door with a +careless denial, and never see that she was desperate—that it wanted +only one more such turning away to make her do the thing she did."</p> + +<p>He saw her press her lips together, her eyes fixed on the road ahead, +and he saw the beautiful brows <a name="Page_279" id="Page_279"></a>contract, as if the memory still were +too keen for her to bear calmly.</p> + +<p>"You have certainly atoned a hundred times over," he said gently, "for +any carelessness in the past. How could you know how she was feeling? +And she was insane, Miss Stockton said."</p> + +<p>"No more insane than I am now—simply desperate with weariness and +failure. And I should have seen; I did see. I just—didn't care. I was +busy trying on a box of new frocks from a French dressmaker, frocks of +silk and lace—of silk and lace, Jordan King, while she hadn't clothes +enough to keep her warm! And I couldn't spare the time to look at the +girl's book! Well, I learned what it was to have people turn me from +their doors—I, with plenty of money at my command, no matter how I +elected to dress cheaply and go to cheap boarding places, and—insist on +cheap beds at hospitals." Her tone was full of scorn. "After all, did I +ever really suffer anything of what she suffered? Never, for always I +knew that at any minute I could turn from a poor girl into a rich one, +throw my book in the faces of those who refused to buy it, and telephone +my anxious family. They did come on and try to get me away—once. I went +with them—for the day. It was the day you met me. And always there was +the interest of the adventure. It was an adventure, you know, a big +one."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280"></a>"I should say it was. And when you were at the hospital—"</p> + +<p>"Accepting expensive rooms and free medical attendance—oh, wasn't I a +fraud? How I felt it I can never tell you. But I could—and did—send +back Doctor Burns a draft in part payment, though I thought he would +never imagine where it came from. He did, though. What do you suppose he +told me last night when we were driving home?—this morning it was, of +course."</p> + +<p>"I can't guess," King admitted, suffering a distinct and poignant pang +of jealousy at thought of Red Pepper Burns driving through the night +with this girl, on an errand of mercy though it had been.</p> + +<p>"He told me," she said slowly, "that he learned all about me while I was +in the hospital. One night, when I was at the worst, he sent Miss Arden +out for a rest and sat beside me himself. And in my foolish, delirious +wanderings I gave him the whole story, or enough of it so that he pieced +out the rest. And he never told a soul, not even his wife; wasn't that +wonderful of him? And treated me exactly the same as if he didn't +practically know I wasn't what I seemed. You see, I wasn't far enough +away from that poor girl's suicide, when I was so ill last year, but +that it was always in my mind. Even yet I dream of it at times."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281"></a>They were entering a large manufacturing town, the streets in the early +morning full of factory operatives on their way to work, dinner-pails in +hands and shawls over heads. Anne drove carefully, often throwing a +smile at a group of children or slowing down more than the law decreed +to avoid making some weary-faced woman hurry. And when at length she +drew up before a dingy brick tenement house, of a type the most +unpromising, King discovered that her "friend" was one of these very +people.</p> + +<p>He carried the hamper up two flights of ramshackle stairs and set it +inside the door she indicated. Then he unwillingly withdrew to the car, +where he sat waiting—and wondering. It was not long he had to wait, in +point of time, but his impatience was growing upon him. All this was +very well, and threw interesting lights upon a girl's character, but—it +would be nine o'clock all too soon. To be sure, though Red Pepper bore +him away, he knew the road back—he could come back as soon as he +pleased, with nobody to set hours of departure for him. But he did not +mean to go away this first time without the thing he wanted, if it was +to be his.</p> + +<p>She came running downstairs, face aglow with relief and pleasure, and +sent the car smoothly away. And now it was that King discovered how a +<a name="Page_282" id="Page_282"></a>girl may fence and parry, so that a man may not successfully introduce +the subject he is burning to speak of, without riding roughshod over her +objection. And presently he gave it up, biding his time. He sat silent +while she talked, and then finally, when she too grew silent, he let the +minutes slip by without another word. Thus it was that they drew up at +the house, still speechless concerning the great issue between them.</p> + +<p>It was only a little past seven; nobody was in sight except a maid +servant, who slipped discreetly away. King took one look into a small +room at the right of the hall, a sort of small den or office it seemed +to be. Then he turned to Anne and put out his hand. "Will you come in +here, please?" he requested.</p> + +<p>She looked at him for a moment without giving him her hand, then +preceded him into the room. There was a heavy curtain of dull blue silk +hanging by the door frame, and King noiselessly drew this across. Then +he turned and confronted the girl. She had drawn off her motoring +gloves, but made no motion to remove either the rough gray coat in which +she had been driving or the small gray velvet hat drawn smoothly down +over her curls with a clever air of its own. Altogether she looked not +in the least like a hostess, but very like a traveller <a name="Page_283" id="Page_283"></a>who has only +paused for a brief stop on a journey to be immediately continued.</p> + +<p>He stood there watching her for a minute, himself a challenging figure +with his dark, bright face, his fine young height, his air of—quite +suddenly—commanding the situation. And he was between the girl and the +door. The two pairs of eyes looked straight into each other.</p> + +<p>"Well?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Well?" said Anne Linton Coolidge in return.</p> + +<p>"Did you expect me to wait any longer?"</p> + +<p>"I was afraid you might come and go—and never say so much as 'Well?'" +said she.</p> + +<p>This was more than mortal man could bear—and there was no more waiting +done by anybody. When Jordan King had—temporarily—done satisfying the +hunger of his lips and arms, he spoke again, looking down searchingly at +a face into which he had brought plenty of splendid colour.</p> + +<p>"If I had found you in that poor place I thought I should, it would have +been just the same," he said.</p> + +<p>"I really believe it would," admitted Anne.</p> + +<hr class="fifty" /> + +<p>Half an hour afterward, emerging from the small room which had held such +a big experience, the <a name="Page_284" id="Page_284"></a>pair discovered Red Pepper Burns just descending +the stairway. He scrutinized their faces sharply, then advanced upon +them. They met him halfway. He gravely took Anne's hand and set his +fingers on her pulse.</p> + +<p>"Too rapid," he said with a shake of the head. "Altogether too rapid. +You have been undergoing much excitement—and so early in the morning, +too. As your physician I must caution you against such untimely hours."</p> + +<p>He felt of King's wrist, and again he shook his head. "Worse and worse," +he announced. "Not only rapid, but bounding. The heart is plainly +overworked. These cases are contagious. One acts upon the other—no +doubt of it—no doubt at all. I would suggest—"</p> + +<p>He found both his arms grasped by Jordan King's strong hands, and he +allowed himself to be held tightly by that happy young man. "Give us +your best wishes!" demanded his captor.</p> + +<p>"Why, you've had those from the first. I saw this coming before either +of you," Burns replied.</p> + +<p>"Not before I did," asserted King.</p> + +<p>"Not before I did," declared Anne.</p> + +<p>Then the two looked at each other, and Burns, smiling at them, his hazel +eyes very bright, requested to be restored the use of his arms. This +being conceded, he laid those arms about the <a name="Page_285" id="Page_285"></a>shoulders before him and +drew the two young people close within them.</p> + +<p>"You two are the most satisfactory and the dearest patients I've ever +had," declared Red Pepper Burns.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RED PEPPER'S PATIENTS***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 16115-h.txt or 16115-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/6/1/1/16115">https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/1/1/16115</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution.</p> + + + +<pre> +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +<a href="https://gutenberg.org/license">https://gutenberg.org/license)</a>. + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS,' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: +https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's +eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII, +compressed (zipped), HTML and others. + +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over +the old filename and etext number. The replaced older file is renamed. +VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving +new filenames and etext numbers. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">https://www.gutenberg.org</a> + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000, +are filed in directories based on their release date. If you want to +download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular +search system you may utilize the following addresses and just +download by the etext year. + +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext06/">https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext06/</a> + + (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, + 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90) + +EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are +filed in a different way. The year of a release date is no longer part +of the directory path. The path is based on the etext number (which is +identical to the filename). The path to the file is made up of single +digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename. For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL">https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL</a> + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** +</pre> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/16115-h/images/frontispiece.jpg b/16115-h/images/frontispiece.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ad56e8b --- /dev/null +++ b/16115-h/images/frontispiece.jpg diff --git a/16115-h/images/gs01.jpg b/16115-h/images/gs01.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e2d4128 --- /dev/null +++ b/16115-h/images/gs01.jpg diff --git a/16115.txt b/16115.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4b0ca3a --- /dev/null +++ b/16115.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7480 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Red Pepper's Patients, by Grace S. Richmond + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Red Pepper's Patients + With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular + + +Author: Grace S. Richmond + + + +Release Date: June 23, 2005 [eBook #16115] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RED PEPPER'S PATIENTS*** + + +E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Irma Spehar, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) + + + +RED PEPPER'S PATIENTS + +With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular + +by + +GRACE S. RICHMOND + +Garden City New York +Doubleday, Page & Company + +1918 + + + + + + + +[Illustration: FRONTISPIECE] + + + +[Illustration: "Red Pepper" Burns, M.D.] + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER + + I. AN INTELLIGENT PRESCRIPTION + + II. LITTLE HUNGARY + + III. ANNE LINTON'S TEMPERATURE + + IV. TWO RED HEADS + + V. SUSQUEHANNA + + VI. HEAVY LOCAL MAILS + + VII. WHITE LILACS + + VIII. EXPERT DIAGNOSIS + + IX. JORDAN IS A MAN + + X. THE SURGICAL FIRING LINE + + XI. THE ONLY SAFE PLACE + + XII. THE TRUTH ABOUT SUSQUEHANNA + + XIII. RED HEADED AGAIN + + XIV. A STRANGE DAY + + XV. CLEARED DECKS + + XVI. WHITE LILACS AGAIN + + XVII. RED'S DEAREST PATIENTS + + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +AN INTELLIGENT PRESCRIPTION + +The man in the silk-lined, London-made overcoat, holding his hat firmly +on his head lest the January wind send its expensive perfection into the +gutter, paused to ask his way of the man with no overcoat, his hands +shoved into his ragged pockets, his shapeless headgear crowded down over +his eyes, red and bleary with the piercing wind. + +"Burns?" repeated the second man to the question of the first. "Doc +Burns? Sure! Next house beyond the corner--the brick one." He turned to +point. "Tell it by the rigs hitched. It's his office hours. You'll do +some waitin', tell ye that." + +The questioner smiled--a slightly superior smile. "Thank you," he said, +and passed on. He arrived at the corner and paused briefly, considering +the row of vehicles in front of the old, low-lying brick house with its +comfortable, white-pillared porches. The row was indeed a formidable +one and suggested many waiting people within the house. But after an +instant's hesitation he turned up the gravel path toward the wing of the +house upon whose door could be seen the lettering of an inconspicuous +sign. As he came near he made out that the sign read "R.P. Burns, M.D.," +and that the table of office hours below set forth that the present hour +was one of those designated. + +"I'll get a line on your practice, Red," said the stranger to himself, +and laid hand upon the doorbell. "Incidentally, perhaps, I'll get a line +on why you stick to a small suburban town like this when you might be in +the thick of things. A fellow whom I've twice met in Vienna, too. I +can't understand it." + +A fair-haired young woman in a white uniform and cap admitted the +newcomer and pointed him to the one chair left unoccupied in the large +and crowded waiting-room. It was a pleasant room, in a well-worn sort of +way, and the blazing wood fire in a sturdy fireplace, the rows of +dull-toned books cramming a solid phalanx of bookcases, and a number of +interesting old prints on the walls gave it, as the stranger, lifting +critical eyes, was obliged to admit to himself, a curious air of dignity +in spite of the mingled atmosphere of drugs and patients which assailed +his fastidious nostrils. As for the patients themselves, since they +were all about him, he could hardly do less than observe them, although +he helped himself to a late magazine from a well-filled table at his +side and mechanically turned its pages. + +The first to claim his attention was a little girl at his elbow. She +could hardly fail to catch his eye, she was so conspicuous with +bandages. One eye, one cheek, the whole of her neck, and both her hands +were swathed in white, but the other cheek was rosy, and the uncovered +eye twinkled bravely as she smiled at the stranger. "I was burned," she +said proudly. + +"I see," returned the stranger, speaking very low, for he was conscious +that the entire roomful of people was listening. "And you are getting +better?" + +"Oh, yes!" exulted the child. "Doctor's making me have new skin. He gets +me more new skin every day. I didn't have any at all. It was all burned +off." + +"That's very good of him," murmured the stranger. + +"He's awful good," said the child, "when he isn't cross. He isn't ever +cross to me, Doctor isn't." + +There was a general murmur of amusement in the room, and another child, +not far away, laughed aloud. The stranger furtively scrutinized the +other patients one by one, lifting apparently casual glances from +behind his magazine. Several, presumably the owners of the vehicles +outside, were of the typical village type, but there were others more +sophisticated, and several who were palpably persons of wealth. One late +comer was admitted who left a luxuriously appointed motor across the +street, and brought in with her an atmosphere of costly furs and violets +and fresh air. + +"Certainly a mixed crowd," said the stranger to himself behind his +magazine; "but not so different, after all, from most doctors' +waiting-room crowds. I might send in a card, but, if I remember Red, it +wouldn't get me anything--and this is rather interesting anyhow. I'll +wait." + +He waited, for he wished the waiting room to be clear when he should +approach that busy consulting room beyond. Meanwhile, people came and +went. The door into the inner room would swing open, a patient would +emerge, a curt but pleasant "Good-bye" in a deep voice following him or +her out, and the fair-haired nurse, who sat at a desk near the door or +came out of the consulting room with the patient, would summon the next. +The lady of the furs and violets sent in her card, but, as the stranger +had anticipated in his own case, it procured her no more than an +assurance from the nurse that Doctor Burns would see her in due course. +Since he wanted the coast clear the stranger, when at last his turn +arrived, politely waived his rights, sent the furs and violets in before +him, and sat alone with the nurse in the cleared waiting room. + +A comparatively short period of time elapsed before the consulting-room +door opened once more. But it closed again--almost--and a few words +reached the outer room. + +"Oh, but you're hard--hard, Doctor Burns! I simply can't do it," said a +plaintive voice. + +"Then don't expect me to accomplish anything. It's up to +you--absolutely," replied a brusque voice, which then softened slightly +as it added: "Cheer up. You can, you know. Good-bye." + +The patient came out, her lips set, her eyes lowered, and left the +office as if she wanted nothing so much as to get away. The nurse rose +and began to say that Doctor Burns would now see his one remaining +caller, but at that moment Doctor Burns himself appeared in the doorway, +glanced at the stranger, who had risen, smiling--and the need for an +intermediary between physician and patient vanished before the onslaught +of the physician himself. + +"My word! Gardner Coolidge! Well, well--if this isn't the greatest thing +on earth. My dear fellow!" + +The stranger, no longer a stranger, with his hand being wrung like +that, with his eyes being looked into by a pair of glowing hazel eyes +beneath a heavy thatch of well-remembered coppery hair, returned this +demonstration of affection with equal fervour. + +"I've been sitting in your stuffy waiting room, Red, till the entire +population of this town should tell you its aches, just for the pleasure +of seeing you with the professional manner off." + +Burns threw back his head and laughed, with a gesture as of flinging +something aside. "It's off then, Cooly--if I have one. I didn't know I +had. How are you? Man, but it's good to see you! Come along out of this +into a place that's not stuffy. Where's your bag? You didn't leave it +anywhere?" + +"I can't stay, Red--really I can't. Not this time. I must go to-night. +And I came to consult you professionally--so let's get that over first." + +"Of course. Just let me speak a word to the authorities. You'll at least +be here for dinner? Step into the next room, Cooly. On your way let me +present you to my assistant, Miss Mathewson, whom I couldn't do without. +Mr. Coolidge, Miss Mathewson." + +Gardner Coolidge bowed to the office nurse, whom he had already +classified as a very attractively superior person and well worth a good +salary; then went on into the consulting room, where an open window had +freshened the small place beyond any possibility of its being called +stuffy. As he closed the window with a shiver and looked about him, +glancing into the white-tiled surgery beyond; he recognized the fact +that, though he might be in the workshop of a village practitioner, it +was a workshop which did not lack the tools of the workman thoroughly +abreast of the times. + +Burns came back, his face bright with pleasure in the unexpected +appearance of his friend. He stood looking across the small room at +Coolidge, as if he could get a better view of the whole man at a little +distance. The two men were a decided contrast to each other. Redfield +Pepper Burns, known to all his intimates, and to many more who would not +have ventured to call him by that title, as "Red Pepper Burns," on +account of the combination of red head, quick temper, and wit which were +his most distinguishing characteristics of body and mind, was a stalwart +fellow whose weight was effectually kept down by his activity. His white +linen office jacket was filled by powerful shoulders, and the perfectly +kept hands of the surgeon gave evidence, as such hands do, of their +delicacy of touch, in the very way in which Burns closed the door behind +him. + +Gardner Coolidge was of a different type altogether. As tall as Burns, +he looked taller because of his slender figure and the distinctive +outlines of his careful dress. His face was dark and rather thin, +showing sensitive lines about the eyes and mouth, and a tendency to +melancholy in the eyes themselves, even when lighted by a smile, as now. +He was manifestly the man of worldly experience, with fastidious tastes, +and presumably one who did not accept the rest of mankind as comrades +until proved and chosen. + +"So it's my services you want?" questioned Burns. "If that's the case, +then it's here you sit." + +"Face to the light, of course," objected Coolidge with a grimace. "I +wonder if you doctors know what a moral advantage as well as a physical +one that gives you." + +"Of course. The moral advantage is the one we need most. Anybody can see +when a skin is jaundiced; but only by virtue of that moral standpoint +can we detect the soul out of order. And that's the matter with you, +Cooly." + +"What!" Coolidge looked startled. "I knew you were a man who jumped to +conclusions in the old days--" + +"And acted on them, too," admitted Burns. "I should say I did. And got +myself into many a scrape thereby, of course. Well, I jump to +conclusions now, in just the same way, only perhaps with a bit more +understanding of the ground I jump on. However, tell me your symptoms +in orthodox style, please, then we'll have them out of the way." + +Coolidge related them somewhat reluctantly because, as he went on, he +was conscious that they did not appear to be of as great importance as +this visit to a physician seemed to indicate he thought them. The most +impressive was the fact that he was unable to get a thoroughly good +night's sleep except when physically exhausted, which in his present +manner of life he seldom was. When he had finished and looked around--he +had been gazing out of the window--he found himself, as he had known he +should, under the intent scrutiny of the eyes he was facing. + +"What did the last man give you for this insomnia?" was the abrupt +question. + +"How do you know I have been to a succession of men?" demanded Coolidge +with a touch of evident irritation. + +"Because you come to me. We don't look up old friends in the profession +until the strangers fail us," was the quick reply. + +"More hasty conclusions. Still, I'll have to admit that I let our family +physician look me over, and that he suggested my seeing a nerve +man--Allbright. He has rather a name, I believe?" + +"Sure thing. What did he recommend?" + +"A long sea voyage. I took it--having nothing else to do--and slept a +bit better while I was away. The minute I got back it was the old +story." + +"Nothing on your mind, I suppose?" suggested Burns. + +"I supposed you'd ask me that stock question. Why shouldn't there be +something on my mind? Is there anybody whose mind is free from a weight +of some sort?" demanded Gardner Coolidge. His thin face flushed a +little. + +"Nobody," admitted Burns promptly. "The question is whether the weight +on yours is one that's got to stay there or whether you may be rid of +it. Would you care to tell me anything about it? I'm a pretty old +friend, you know." + +Coolidge was silent for a full minute, then he spoke with evident +reluctance: "It won't do a particle of good to tell, but I suppose, if I +consult you, you have a right to know the facts. My wife--has gone back +to her father." + +"On a visit?" Burns inquired. + +Coolidge stared at him. "That's like you, Red," he said, irritation in +his voice again. "What's the use of being brutal?" + +"Has she been gone long enough for people to think it's anything more +than a visit?" + +"I suppose not. She's been gone two months. Her home is in California." + +"Then she can be gone three without anybody's thinking trouble. By the +end of that third month you can bring her home," said Burns comfortably. +He leaned back in his swivel-chair, and stared hard at the ceiling. + +Coolidge made an exclamation of displeasure and got to his feet. "If you +don't care to take me seriously--" he began. + +"I don't take any man seriously who I know cared as much for his wife +when he married her as you did for Miss Carrington--and whose wife was +as much in love with him as she was with you--when he comes to me and +talks about her having gone on a visit to her father. Visits are good +things; they make people appreciate each other." + +"You don't--or won't--understand." Coolidge evidently strove hard to +keep himself quiet. "We have come to a definite understanding that we +can't--get on together. She's not coming back. And I don't want her to." + +Burns lowered his gaze from the ceiling to his friend's face, and the +glance he now gave him was piercing. "Say that last again," he demanded. + +"I have some pride," replied the other haughtily, but his eyes would not +meet Burns's. + +"So I see. Pride is a good thing. So is love. Tell me you don't love her +and I'll--No, don't tell me that. I don't want to hear you perjure +yourself. And I shouldn't believe you. You may as well own up"--his +voice was gentle now--"that you're suffering--and not only with hurt +pride." There was silence for a little. Then Burns began again, in a +very low and quiet tone: "Have you anything against her, Cooly?" + +The man before him, who was still standing, turned upon him. "How can +you ask me such a question?" he said fiercely. + +"It's a question that has to be asked, just to get it out of the way. +Has she anything against you?" + +"For heaven's sake--no! You know us both." + +"I thought I did. Diagnosis, you know, is a series of eliminations. And +now I can eliminate pretty nearly everything from this case except a +certain phrase you used a few minutes ago. I'm inclined to think it's +the cause of the trouble." Coolidge looked his inquiry. "'_Having +nothing else to do._'" + +Coolidge shook his head. "You're mistaken there. I have plenty to do." + +"But nothing you couldn't be spared from--unless things have changed +since the days when we all envied you. You're still writing your name on +the backs of dividend drafts, I suppose?" + +"Red, you are something of a brute," said Coolidge, biting his lip. But +he had taken the chair again. + +"I know," admitted Red Pepper Burns. "I don't really mean to be, but the +only way I can find out the things I need to know is to ask straight +questions. I never could stand circumlocution. If you want that, Cooly; +if you want what are called 'tactful' methods, you'll have to go to some +other man. What I mean by asking you that one is to prove to you that +though you may have something to do, you have no job to work at. As it +happens you haven't even what most other rich men have, the trouble of +looking after your income--and as long as your father lives you won't +have it. I understand that; he won't let you. But there's a man with a +job--your father. And he likes it so well he won't share it with you. It +isn't the money he values, it's the job. And collecting books or curios +or coins can never be made to take the place of good, downright hard +work." + +"That may be all true," acknowledged Coolidge, "but it has nothing to do +with my present trouble. My leisure was not what--" He paused, as if he +could not bear to discuss the subject of his marital unhappiness. + +The telephone bell in the outer office rang sharply. An instant later +Miss Mathewson knocked, and gave a message to Burns. He read it, +nodded, said "Right away," and turned back to his friend. + +"I have to leave you for a bit," he said. "Come in and meet my wife and +one of the kiddies. The other's away just now. I'll be back in time for +dinner. Meanwhile, we'll let the finish of this talk wait over for an +hour or two. I want to think about it." + +He exchanged his white linen office-jacket for a street coat, splashing +about with soap and water just out of sight for a little while before he +did so, and reappeared looking as if he had washed away the fatigue of +his afternoon's work with the physical process. He led Gardner Coolidge +out of the offices into a wide separating hall, and the moment the door +closed behind him the visitor felt as if he had entered a different +world. + +Could this part of the house, he thought, as Burns ushered him into the +living room on the other side of the hall and left him there while he +went to seek his wife, possibly be contained within the old brick walls +of the exterior? He had not dreamed of finding such refinement of beauty +and charm in connection with the office of the village doctor. In half a +dozen glances to right and left Gardner Coolidge, experienced in +appraising the belongings of the rich and travelled of superior taste +and breeding, admitted to himself that the genius of the place must be +such a woman as he would not have imagined Redfield Pepper Burns able +to marry. + +He had not long to wait for the confirmation of his insight. Burns +shortly returned, a two-year-old boy on his shoulder, his wife +following, drawn along by the child's hand. Coolidge looked, and liked +that which he saw. And he understood, with one glance into the dark eyes +which met his, one look at the firm sweetness of the lovely mouth, that +the heart of the husband must safely trust in this woman. + +Burns went away at once, leaving Coolidge in the company of Ellen, and +the guest, eager though he was for the professional advice he had come +to seek, could not regret the necessity which gave him this hour with a +woman who seemed to him very unusual. Charm she possessed in full +measure, beauty in no less, but neither of these terms nor both together +could wholly describe Ellen Burns. There was something about her which +seemed to glow, so that he soon felt that her presence in the quietly +rich and restful living room completed its furnishing, and that once +having seen her there the place could never be quite at its best without +her. + +Burns came back, and the three went out to dinner. The small boy, a +handsome, auburn-haired, brown-eyed composite of his parents, had been +sent away, the embraces of both father and mother consoling him for his +banishment to the arms of a coloured mammy. Coolidge thoroughly enjoyed +the simple but appetizing dinner, of the sort he had known he should +have as soon as he had met the mistress of the house. And after it he +was borne away by Burns to the office. + +"I have to go out again at once," the physician announced. "I'm going to +take you with me. I suppose you have a distaste for the sight of +illness, but that doesn't matter seriously. I want you to see this +patient of mine." + +"Thank you, but I don't believe that's necessary," responded Coolidge +with a frown. "If Mrs. Burns is too busy to keep me company I'll sit +here and read while you're out." + +"No, you won't. If you consult a man you're bound to take his +prescriptions. I'm telling you frankly, for you'd see through me if I +pretended to take you out for a walk and then pulled you into a house. +Be a sport, Cooly." + +"Very well," replied the other man, suppressing his irritation. He was +almost, but not quite, wishing he had not yielded to the unexplainable +impulse which had brought him here to see a man who, as he should have +known from past experience in college days, was as sure to be eccentric +in his methods of practising his profession as he had been in the +conduct of his life as a student. + +The two went out into the winter night together, Coolidge remarking that +the call must be a brief one, for his train would leave in a little more +than an hour. + +"It'll be brief," Burns promised. "It's practically a friendly call +only, for there's nothing more I can do for the patient--except to see +him on his way." + +Coolidge looked more than ever reluctant. "I hope he's not just leaving +the world?" + +"What if he were--would that frighten you? Don't be worried; he'll not +go to-night." + +Something in Burns's tone closed his companion's lips. Coolidge resented +it, and at the same time he felt constrained to let the other have his +way. And after all there proved to be nothing in the sight he presently +found himself witnessing to shock the most delicate sensibilities. + +It was a little house to which Burns conducted his friend and latest +patient; it was a low-ceiled, homely room, warm with lamplight and +comfortable with the accumulations of a lifetime carefully preserved. In +the worn, old, red-cushioned armchair by a glowing stove sat an aged +figure of a certain dignity and attractiveness in spite of the lines and +hues plainly showing serious illness. The man was a man of education +and experience, as was evident from his first words in response to +Burns's greeting. + +"It was kind of you to come again to-night, Doctor. I suspect you know +how it shortens the nights to have this visit from you in the evening." + +"Of course I know," Burns responded, his hand resting gently on the +frail shoulder, his voice as tender as that of a son's to a father whom +he knows he is not long to see. + +There was a woman in the room, an old woman with a pathetic face and +eyes like a mourning dog's as they rested on her husband. But her voice +was cheerful and full of quiet courage as she answered Burns's +questions. The pair received Gardner Coolidge as simply as if they were +accustomed to meet strangers every day, spoke with him a little, and +showed him the courtesy of genuine interest when he tried to entertain +them with a brief account of an incident which had happened on his train +that day. Altogether, there was nothing about the visit which he could +have characterized as painful from the point of view of the layman who +accompanies the physician to a room where it is clear that the great +transition is soon to take place. And yet there was everything about it +to make it painful--acutely painful--to any man whose discernment was +naturally as keen as Coolidge's. + +That the parting so near at hand was to be one between lovers of long +standing could be read in every word and glance the two gave each other. +That they were making the most of these last days was equally apparent, +though not a word was said to suggest it. And that the man who was +conducting them through the fast-diminishing time was dear to them as a +son could have been read by the very blind. + +"It's so good of you--so good of you, Doctor," they said again as Burns +rose to go, and when he responded: "It's good to myself I am, my dears, +when I come to look at you," the smiles they gave him and each other +were very eloquent. + +Outside there was silence between the two men for a little as they +walked briskly along, then Coolidge said reluctantly: "Of course I +should have a heart of stone if I were not touched by that scene--as you +knew I would be." + +"Yes, I knew," said Burns simply; and Coolidge saw him lift his hand and +dash away a tear. "It gets me, twice a day regularly, just as if I +hadn't seen it before. And when I go back and look at the woman I love I +say to myself that I'll never let anything but the last enemy come +between us if I have to crawl on my knees before her." + +Suddenly Coolidge's throat contracted. His resentment against his friend +was gone. Surely it was a wise physician who had given him that +heartbreaking little scene to remember when he should be tempted to +harden his heart against the woman he had chosen. + +"Red," he said bye and bye, when the two were alone together for a few +minutes again in the consulting room before he should leave for his +train, "is that all the prescription you're going to give me--a trip to +California? Suppose I'm not successful?" + +Red Pepper Burns smiled, a curious little smile. "You've forgotten what +I told you about the way my old man and woman made a home together,' and +worked at their market gardening together, and read and studied +together--did everything from first to last _together_. That's the whole +force of the illustration, to my mind, Cooly. It's the standing shoulder +to shoulder to face life that does the thing. Whatever plan you make for +your after life, when you bring Alicia back with you--as you will; I +know it--make it a plan which means partnership--if you have to build a +cottage down on the edge of your estate and live alone there together. +Alone till the children come to keep you company," he added with a +sudden flashing smile. + +Coolidge looked at him and shook his head. His face dropped back into +melancholy. He opened his lips and closed them again. Red Pepper Burns +opened his own lips--and closed them again. When he did speak it was to +say, more gently than he had yet spoken: + +"Old fellow, life isn't in ruins before you. Make up your mind to that. +You'll sleep again, and laugh again--and cry again, too,--because life +is like that, and you wouldn't want it any other way." + +It was time for Coolidge to go, and the two men went in to permit the +guest to take leave of Mrs. Burns. When they left the house Coolidge +told his friend briefly what he thought of his friend's wife, and Burns +smiled in the darkness as he heard. + +"She affects most people that way," he answered with a proud little ring +in his voice. But he did not go on to talk about her; that would have +been brutal indeed in Coolidge's unhappy circumstances. + +At the train Coolidge turned suddenly to his physician. "You haven't +given me anything for my sleeplessness," he said. + +"Think you must have a prescription?" Burns inquired, getting out his +blank and pen. + +"It will take some time for your advice to work out, if it ever does," +Coolidge said. "Meanwhile, the more good sleep I get the fitter I shall +be for the effort." + +"True enough. All right, you shall have the prescription." + +Burns wrote rapidly, resting the small leather-bound book on his knee, +his foot on an iron rail of the fence which kept passengers from +crowding. He read over what he had written, his face sober, his eyes +intent. He scrawled a nearly indecipherable "_Burns_" at the bottom, +folded the slip and handed it to his friend. "Put it away till you're +ready to get it filled," he advised. + +The two shook hands, gripping tightly and looking straight into each +other's eyes. + +"Thank you, Red, for it all," said Gardner Coolidge. "There have been +minutes when I felt differently, but I understand you better now. And I +see why your waiting room is full of patients even on a stormy day." + +"No, you don't," denied Red Pepper Burns stoutly. "If you saw me take +their heads off you'd wonder that they ever came again. Plenty of them +don't--and I don't blame them--when I've cooled off." + +Coolidge smiled. "You never lie awake thinking over what you've said or +done, do you, Red? Bygones are bygones with a man like you. You couldn't +do your work if they weren't!" + +A peculiar look leaped into Burns's eyes. "That's what the outsiders +always think," he answered briefly. + +"Isn't it true?" + +"You may as well go on thinking it is--and so may the rest. What's the +use of explaining oneself, or trying to? Better to go on looking +unsympathetic--and suffering, sometimes, more than all one's patients +put together!" + +Coolidge stared at the other man. His face showed suddenly certain grim +lines which Coolidge had not noticed there before--lines written by +endurance, nothing less. But even as the patient looked the physician's +expression changed again. His sternly set lips relaxed into a smile, he +pointed to a motioning porter. + +"Time to be off, Cooly," he said. "Mind you let me know how--you are. +Good luck--the best of it!" + + * * * * * + +In the train Coolidge had no sooner settled himself than he read Burns's +prescription. He had a feeling that it would be different from other +prescriptions, and so it proved: + + Rx + + Walk five miles every evening. + + Drink no sort of stimulant, except one cup of coffee at + breakfast. + + Begin to make plans for the cottage. Don't let it turn out a + palace. + + Ask the good Lord every night to keep you from being a proud + fool. + + BURNS. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +LITTLE HUNGARY + + +"Not hungry, Red? After all that cold drive to-day? Would you like to +have Cynthia make you something special, dear?" + +R.P. Burns, M.D., shook his head. "No, thanks." He straightened in his +chair, where he sat at the dinner table opposite his wife. He took up +his knife and fork again and ate valiantly a mouthful or two of the +tempting food upon his plate, then he laid the implements down +decisively. He put his elbow on the table and leaned his head upon his +hand. "I'm just too blamed tired to eat, that's all," he said. + +"Then don't try. I'm quite through, too. Come in the living room and lie +down a little. It's such a stormy night there may be nobody in." + +Ellen slipped her hand through his arm and led the way to the big blue +couch facing the fireplace. He dropped upon it with a sigh of fatigue. +His wife sat down beside him and began to pass her fingers lightly +through his heavy hair, with the touch which usually soothed him into +slumber if no interruptions came to summon him. But to-night her +ministrations seemed to have little effect, for he lay staring at a +certain picture on the wall with eyes which evidently saw beyond it into +some trying memory. + +"Is the whole world lying heavy on your shoulders to-night, Red?" Ellen +asked presently, knowing that sometimes speech proved a relief from +thought. + +He nodded. "The whole world--millions of tons of it. It's just because +I'm tired. There's no real reason why I should take this day's work +harder than usual--except that I lost the Anderson case this morning. +Poor start for the day, eh?" + +"But you knew you must lose it. Nobody could have saved that poor +creature." + +"I suppose not. But I wanted to save him just the same. You see, he +particularly wanted to live, and he had pinned his whole faith to me. He +wouldn't give it up that I could do the miracle. It hurts to disappoint +a faith like that." + +"Of course it does," she said gently. "But you must try to forget now, +Red, because of to-morrow. There will be people to-morrow who need you +as much as he did." + +"That's just what I'd like to forget," he murmured. "Everything's gone +wrong to-day--it'll go worse to-morrow." + +She knew it was small use to try to combat this mood, so unlike his +usual optimism, but frequent enough of occurrence to make her understand +that there is no depression like that of the habitually buoyant, once it +takes firm hold. She left him presently and went to sit by the reading +lamp, looking through current magazines in hope of finding some article +sufficiently attractive to capture his interest, and divert his heavy +thoughts. His eyes rested absently on her as she sat there, a charming, +comradely figure in her simple home dinner attire, with the light on her +dark hair and the exquisite curve of her cheek. + +It was a fireside scene of alluring comfort, the two central figures of +such opposite characteristics, yet so congenial. The night outside was +very cold, the wind blowing stormily in great gusts which now and then +howled down the chimney, making the warmth and cheer within all the more +appealing. + +Suddenly Ellen, hunting vainly for the page she sought, lifted her head, +to see her husband lift his at the same instant. + +"Music?" she questioned. "Where can it come from? Not outside on such a +night as this?" + +"Did you hear it, too? I've been thinking it my imagination." + +"It must be the wind, but--no, it _is_ music!" + +She rose and went to the window, pushing aside draperies and setting her +face to the frosty pane. The next instant she called in a startled way: + +"Oh, Red--come here!" + +He came slowly, but the moment he caught sight of the figure in the +storm outside his langour vanished. + +"Good heavens! The poor beggar! We must have him in." + +He ran to the hall and the outer door, and Ellen heard his shout above +the howling of the wind. + +"Come in--come in!" + +She reached the door into the hall as the slender young figure stumbled +up the steps, a violin clutched tight in fingers purple with cold. She +saw the stiff lips break into a frozen smile as her husband laid his +hand upon the thinly clad shoulder and drew the youth where he could +close the door. + +"Why didn't you come to the door and ring, instead of fiddling out there +in the cold!" demanded Burns. "Do you think we're heathen, to shut +anybody out on a night like this?" + +The boy shook his head. He was a boy in size, though the maturity of his +thin face suggested that he was at least nineteen or twenty years old. +His dark eyes gleamed out of hollow sockets, and his black hair, +curling thickly, was rough with neglect. But he had snatched off his +ragged soft hat even before he was inside the door, and for all the +stiffness of his chilled limbs his attitude, as he stood before his +hosts, had the unconscious grace of the foreigner. + +"Where do you come from?" Burns asked. + +Again the stranger shook his head. + +"He can't speak English," said Ellen. + +"Probably not--though he may be bluffing. We must warm and feed him, +anyhow. Will you have him in here, or shall I take him in the office?" + +Ellen glanced again at the shivering youth, noted that the purple hands +were clean, even to the nails, and led the way unhesitatingly into the +living room with all its beckoning warmth and beauty. + +"Good little sport--I knew you would," murmured Burns, as he beckoned +the boy after him. + +Ellen left the two alone together by the fire, while she went to prepare +a tray with Cynthia in the kitchen, filling it with the hearty food +Burns himself had left untouched. Big slices of juicy roast beef, two +hurriedly warmed sweet potatoes which had been browned in syrup in the +Southern style, crisp buttered rolls, and a pot of steaming coffee were +on the large tray which Cynthia insisted on carrying to the living-room +door for her mistress. Burns, jumping up at sight of her, took the tray, +while Ellen cleared a small table, drew up a chair, and summoned the +young stranger. + +The low bow he made her before he took the chair proclaimed his +breeding, as well as the smile of joy which showed the flash of his even +white teeth in the firelight. He made a little gesture of gratitude +toward both Burns and Ellen, pressing his hands over his heart and then +extending them, the expression on his face touching in its starved +restraint. Then he fell upon the food, and even though he was plainly +ravenous he ate as manneredly as any gentleman. Only by the way he +finished each tiniest crumb could they know his extremity. + +"By Jove, that beats eating it myself, if I were hungry as a faster on +the third day!" Burns exclaimed, as he sat turned away from the +beneficiary, his eyes apparently upon the fire. Ellen, from behind the +boy, smiled at her husband, noting how completely his air of fatigue had +fallen from him. Often before she had observed how any call upon R.P. +Burns's sympathies rode down his own need of commiseration. + +"Hungarian, I think, don't you?" Burns remarked, as the meal was +finished, and the youth rose to bow his thanks once more. This time +there was a response. He nodded violently, smiling and throwing out his +hands. + +"_Ungahree_!" he said, and smiled and nodded again, and said again, +"_Ungahree_!" + +"He knows that word all right," said Burns, smiling back. "It's a land +of musicians. The fiddle's a good one, I'll wager." + +He glanced at it as he spoke, and the boy leaped for it, pressing it to +his breast. He began to tune it. + +"He thinks we want to be paid for his supper," Ellen exclaimed. "Can't +you make him understand we should like him to rest first?" + +"I'd only convey to him the idea that we didn't want to hear him play, +which would be a pity, for we do. If he's the musician he looks, by +those eyes and that mouth, we'll be more than paid. Go ahead, +Hungary--it'll make you happier than anything we could do for you." + +Clearly it would. Burns carried out the tray, and when he returned his +guest was standing upon the hearth rug facing Ellen, his bow uplifted. +He waited till Burns had thrown himself down on the couch again in a +sitting posture, both arms stretched along the back. Then he made his +graceful obeisance again, and drew the bow very slowly and softly over +the first string. And, at the very first note, the two who were watching +him knew what was to come. It was in every line of him, that promise. + +It might have been his gratitude that he was voicing, so touching were +the strains that followed that first note. The air was unfamiliar, but +it sounded like a folk song of his own country, and he put into it all +the poignant, peculiar melody of such a song. His tones were exquisite, +with the sure touch of the trained violinist inspired and supported by +the emotional understanding of the genuine musician. + +When he had finished he stood looking downward for a moment, then as +Burns said "Bravo!" he smiled as if he understood the word, and lifted +his instrument again to his shoulder. This time his bow descended upon +the strings with a full note of triumph, and he burst into the brilliant +performance of a great masterpiece, playing with a spirit and dash which +seemed to transform him. Often his lips parted to show his white teeth, +often he swung his whole body into the rhythm of his music, until he +seemed a very part of the splendid harmonies he made. His thin cheeks +flushed, his hollow eyes grew bright, he smiled, he frowned, he shook +his slender shoulders, he even took a stride to right or left as he +played on, as if the passion of his performance would not let him rest. + +His listeners watched him with sympathetic and comprehending interest. +Warmed and fed, his Latin nature leaping up from its deep depression to +the exaltation of the hour, the appeal he made to them was intensely +pathetic. Burns, even more ardently than his wife, responded to the +appeal. He no longer lounged among the pillows of the broad couch; he +sat erect, his eyes intent, his lips relaxed, his cares forgot. He was a +lover of music, as are many men of his profession, and he was more than +ordinarily susceptible to its influences. He drank in the tones of the +master, voiced by this devoted interpreter, like wine, and like wine +they brought the colour to his face also, and the light to his eyes. + +"Jove!" he murmured, as the last note died away, "he's a wonder. He must +be older than he looks. How he loves it! He's forgotten that he doesn't +know where he's to sleep to-night--but, by all that's fair, _we_ know, +eh?" + +Ellen smiled, with a look of assent. Her own heart was warmly touched. +There was a small bedroom upstairs, plainly but comfortably furnished, +which was often used for impecunious patients who needed to remain under +observation for a day or two. It was at the service of any chance guest, +and the chance guest was surely with them to-night. There was no place +in the village to which such a vagrant as this might be sent, except +the jail, and the jail, for a musician of such quality, was unthinkable. +And in the night and storm one would not turn a dog outdoors to hunt for +shelter--at least not Red Pepper Burns nor Ellen Burns, his wife. + +As if he could not stop, now that he had found ears to listen, the young +Hungarian played on. More and more profoundly did his music move him, +until it seemed as if he had become the very spirit of the instrument +which sung and vibrated under his thin fingers. + +"My word, Len, this is too good to keep all to ourselves. Let's have the +Macauleys and Chesters over. Then we'll have an excuse for paying the +chap a good sum for his work--and somehow I feel that we need an excuse +for such a gentleman as he is." + +"That's just the thing. I'll ask them." + +She was on her way to the telephone when her husband suddenly called +after her, "Wait a minute, Len." She turned back, to see the musician, +his bow faltering, suddenly lower his violin and lean against his +patron, who had leaped to his support. A minute later Burns had him +stretched upon the blue couch, and had laid his fingers on the bony +wrist. + +"Hang me for a simpleton, to feed him like that he's probably not tasted +solid food for days. The reaction is too much, of course. He's been +playing on his nerve for the last ten minutes, and I, like an idiot, +thought it was his emotional temperament." + +He ran out of the room and returned with a wine glass filled with +liquid, which he administered, his arm under the ragged shoulders. Then +he patted the wasted cheek, gone suddenly white except where the excited +colour still showed in faint patches. + +"You'll be all right, son," he said, smiling down into the frightened +eyes, and his tone if not his words seemed to carry reassurance, for the +eyes closed with a weary flutter and the gripping fingers relaxed. + +"He's completely done," Burns said pityingly. He took one hand in his +own and held it in his warm grasp, at which the white lids unclosed +again, and the sensitive lips tried to smile. + +"I'd no business to let him play so long--I might have known. Poor boy, +he's starved for other things than food. Do you suppose anybody's held +his hand like this since he left the old country? He thought he'd find +wealth and fame in the new one--and this is what he found!" + +Ellen stood looking at the pair--her brawny husband, himself "completely +done" an hour before, now sitting on the edge of the couch with his new +patient's hand in his, his face wearing an expression of keen interest, +not a sign of fatigue in his manner; the exhausted young foreigner in +his ragged clothing lying on the luxurious couch, his pale face standing +out like a fine cameo against the blue velvet of the pillow under his +dark head. If a thought of possible contamination for her home's +belongings entered her mind it found no lodgment there, so pitiful was +her heart. + +"Is the room ready upstairs?" Burns asked presently, when he had again +noted the feeble action of the pulse under his fingers. "What he needs +is rest and sleep, and plenty of both. Like the most of us he's kept up +while he had to, and now he's gone to pieces absolutely. To-morrow we +can send him to the hospital, perhaps, but for to-night--" + +"The room is ready. I sent Cynthia up at once." + +"Bless you, you never fail me, do you? Well--we may as well be on our +way. He's nearly asleep now." + +Burns stood up, throwing off his coat. But Ellen remonstrated. + +"Dear, you are so tired to-night. Let me call Jim over to help you carry +him up." + +A derisive laugh answered her. "Great Caesar, Len! The chap's a mere bag +of bones--and if he were twice as heavy he'd be no weight for me. Jim +Macauley would howl at the idea, and no wonder. Go ahead and open the +doors, please, and I'll have him up in a jiffy." + +He stooped over the couch, swung the slender figure up into his powerful +arms, speaking reassuringly to the eyes which slowly opened in +half-stupefied alarm. "It's all right, little Hungary. We're going to +put you to bed, like the small lost boy you are. Bring his fiddle, +Len--he won't want that out of his sight." + +He strode away with his burden, and marched up the stairs as if he were +carrying his own two-year-old son. Arrived in the small, comfortable +little room at the back of the house he laid his charge on the bed, and +stood looking down at him. + +"Len, I'll have to go the whole figure," he said--and said it not as if +the task he was about to impose upon himself were one that irked him. +"Get me hot water and soap and towels, will you? And an old pair of +pajamas. I can't put him to bed in his rags." + +"Shall I send for Amy?" questioned his wife, quite as if she understood +the uselessness of remonstrance. + +"Not much. Amy's making out bills for me to-night, we'll not interrupt +the good work. Put some bath-ammonia in the water, please--and have it +hot." + +Half an hour later he called her in to see the work of his hands. She +had brought him one of his surgical aprons with the bath equipment. With +his sleeves rolled up, his apron well splashed, his coppery hair more or +less in disarray from the occasional thrustings of a soapy hand, and his +face flushed and eager like a healthy boy's, Red Pepper Burns stood +grinning down at his patient. Little Hungary lay in the clean white bed, +his pale face shining with soap and happiness, his arms upon the +coverlet encased in the blue and white sleeves of Burns's pajamas, the +sleeves neatly turned back to accommodate the shortness of his arms. The +workman turned to Ellen as she came in. + +"Comfy, eh?" he observed briefly. + +"Absolutely, I should say, poor dear." + +"Ah, you wouldn't have called him that before the bath. But he is rather +a dear now, isn't he? And I think he's younger than I did downstairs. +Not over eighteen, at the most, but fully forty in the experiences and +hardships that have brought him here. Well, we'll go away and let him +rest. Wish I knew the Hungarian for 'good-night,' don't you? Anyway, if +he knows any prayers he'll say 'em, I'll venture." + +The dark eyes were watching him intently as he spoke, as if their owner +longed to know what this kind angel in the form of a big American +stranger was saying to him. And when, in leaving him, Burns once more +laid an exploring touch upon his wrist, the two thin hands suddenly +clutched the strong one and bore it weakly to lips which kissed it +fervently. + +"Well, that's rather an eloquent thank-you, eh?" murmured Burns, as he +patted the hands in reply. "No doubt but he's grateful. Put the fiddle +where he can see it in the morning, will you, honey? Open the window +pretty well: I've covered him thoroughly, and he has a touch of fever to +keep him warm. Good-night, little Hungary. Luck's with you to-night, to +get into this lady's house." + +Downstairs by the fireside once more, the signs of his late occupation +removed, Burns stretched out an arm for his wife. + +"Come sit beside me in the Retreat," he invited, using the name he had +long ago given to the luxurious blue couch where he was accustomed, +since his marriage, to rest and often to catch a needed nap. He drew the +winsome figure close within his arm, resting his red head against the +dark one below it. "I don't seem to feel particularly tired, now," he +observed. "Curious, isn't it? Fatigue, as I've often noticed, is more +mental than physical--with most of us. Your ditch-digger is tired in his +back and arms, but the ordinary person is merely tired because his mind +tells him he is." + +"You are never too tired to rouse yourself for one patient more," was +Ellen's answer to this. "The last one seems to cure you of the one +before." + +Burns's hearty laugh shook them both. "You can't make me out such an +enthusiast in my profession as that. I turned away two country calls +to-night--too lazy to make 'em." + +"But you would have gone if they couldn't have found anybody else." + +"That goes without saying--no merit in that. The ethics of the +profession have to be lived up to, curse 'em as we may, at times. Len, +how are we to get to know something about little Hungary upstairs? Those +eyes of his are going to follow me into my dreams to-night." + +"I suppose there are Hungarians in town?" + +"Not a one that I ever heard of. Plenty in the city, though. The waiter +at the Arcadia, where I get lunch when I'm at the hospital, is a Magyar. +By Jove, there's an idea! I'll bring Louis out, if Hungary can't get +into the hospital to-morrow--and I warn you he probably can't. I +shouldn't want him to take a twelve-mile ambulance ride in this weather. +That touch of fever may mean simple exhaustion, and it may mean look out +for pneumonia, after all the exposure he's had. I'd give something to +know how it came into his crazy head to stand and fiddle outside a +private house in a January storm. Why didn't he try a cigar shop or some +other warm spot where he could pass the hat? That's what Louis must find +out for me, eh? Len, that was great music of his, wasn't it? The fellow +ought to have a job in a hotel orchestra. Louis and I between us might +get him one." + +Burns went to bed still working on this problem, and Ellen rejoiced that +it had superseded the anxieties of the past day. Next morning he was +early at the little foreigner's bedside, to find him resting quietly, +the fever gone, and only the intense fatigue remaining, the cure for +which was simply rest and food. + +"Shall we let him stay till he's fit?" Burns asked his wife. + +"Of course. Both Cynthia and Amy are much interested, and between them +he will have all he needs." + +"And I'll bring Louis out, if I have to pay for a waiter to take his +place," promised Burns. + +He was as good as his word. When he returned that afternoon from the +daily visit to the city hospital, where he had always many patients, he +brought with him in the powerful roadster which he drove himself a +dark-faced, pointed moustached countryman of little Hungary, who spoke +tolerable English, and was much pleased and flattered to be of service +to the big doctor whom he was accustomed to serve in his best manner. + +Taken to the bedside, Louis gazed down at its occupant with +condescending but comprehending eyes, and spoke a few words which caused +the thin face on the pillow to break into smiles of delight, as the +eager lips answered in the same tongue. Question and answer followed in +quick succession and Louis was soon able to put Burns in possession of a +few significant facts. + +"He say he come to dis countree October. Try find work New York--no +good. He start to valk to countree, find vork farm. Bad time. Seeck, +cold, hungree. Fear he spoil hands for veolinn--dat's vhy he not take +vork on road, vat he could get. He museecian--good one." + +"Does he say that?" Burns asked, amused. + +Louis nodded. "Many museecians in Hungary. Franz come from Budapest. No +poor museecians dere. Budapest great ceety--better Vienna, Berlin, +Leipsic--oh, yes! See, I ask heem." + +He spoke to the boy again, evidently putting a meaning question, for +again the other responded with ardour, using his hands to emphasize his +assertion--for assertion it plainly was. + +Louis laughed. "He say ze countree of Franz Liszt know no poor museeck. +He named for Franz Liszt. He play beeg museeck for you and ze ladee +last night. So?" + +"He did--and took us off our feet. Tell him, will you?" + +"He no un'erstand," laughed Louis, "eef I tell him 'off de feet.'" + +"That's so--no American idioms yet for him, eh? Well, say he made us +very happy with his wonderful music. I'll wager that will get over to +him." + +Plainly it did, to judge by the eloquence of Franz's eyes and his joyous +smile. With quick speech he responded. + +"He say," reported Louis, "he vant to vork for you. No wagees till he +plees you. He do anyting. You van' heem?" + +"Well, I'll have to think about that," Burns temporized. "But tell him +not to worry. We'll find a job before we let him go. He ought to play in +a restaurant or theatre, oughtn't he, Louis?" + +Louis shook his head. "More men nor places," he said. "But ve see--ve +see." + +"All right. Now ask him how he came to stand in front of my house in the +storm and fiddle." + +To this Louis obtained a long reply, at which he first shook his head, +then nodded and laughed, with a rejoinder which brought a sudden rush of +tears to the black eyes below. Louis turned to Burns. + +"He say man lead heem here, make heem stand by window, make sign to +heem to play. I tell heem man knew soft heart eenside." + +To the edge of his coppery hair the blood rushed into the face of Red +Pepper Burns. Whether he would be angry or amused was for the moment an +even chance, as Ellen, watching him, understood. Then he shook his fist +with a laugh. + +"Just wait till I catch that fellow!" he threatened. "A nice way out of +his own obligations to a starving fellow man." + +He sent Louis back to town on the electric car line, with a round fee in +his pocket, and the instruction to leave no stone unturned to find Franz +work for his violin, himself promising to aid him in any plan he might +formulate. + +In three days the young Hungarian was so far himself that Burns had him +downstairs to sit by the office fire, and a day more put him quite on +his feet. Careful search had discovered a temporary place for him in a +small hotel orchestra, whose second violin was ill, and Burns agreed to +take him into the city. The evening before he was to go, Ellen invited a +number of her friends and neighbours in to hear Franz play. + +Dressed in a well-fitting suit of blue serge Franz looked a new being. +The suit had been contributed by Arthur Chester, Burns's neighbour and +good friend next door upon the right, and various other accessories had +been supplied by James Macauley, also Burns's neighbour and good friend +next door upon the left and the husband of Martha Macauley, Ellen's +sister. Even so soon the rest and good food had filled out the deepest +hollows in the emaciated cheeks, and happiness had lighted the sombre +eyes. Those eyes followed Burns about with the adoring gaze of a +faithful dog. + +"It's evident you've attached one more devoted follower to your train, +Red," whispered Winifred Chester, in an interval of the violin playing. + +"Well, he's a devotee worth having," answered Burns, watching his +protege as Franz looked over a pile of music with Ellen, signifying his +pleasure every time they came upon familiar sheets. The two had found +common ground in their love of the most emotional of all the arts, and +Ellen had discovered rare delight in accompanying that ardent violin in +some of the scores both knew and loved. + +"He's as handsome as a picture to-night, isn't he?" Winifred pursued. +"How Arthur's old blue suit transforms him. And wasn't it clever of +Ellen to have him wear that soft white shirt with the rolling collar and +flowing black tie? It gives him the real musician's look." + +"Trust you women to work for dramatic effects," murmured Burns. "Here we +go--and I'll wager it'll be something particularly telling, judging by +the way they both look keyed up to it. Ellen plays like a virtuoso +herself to-night, doesn't she?" + +"It's enough to inspire any one to have that fiddle at her shoulder," +remarked James Macauley, who, hanging over the couch, had been listening +to this bit of talk. + +The performance which followed captured them all, even practical and +energetic Martha Macauley, who had often avowed that she considered the +study of music a waste of time in a busy world. + +"Though I think, after all," she observed to Arthur Chester, who lounged +by her side, revelling in the entertainment with the zest of the man who +would give his whole time to affairs like these if it were not necessary +for him to make a living at the practice of some more prosaic +profession, "it's quite as much the interest of having such a stagey +character performing for us as it is his music. Did you ever see any +human being throw his whole soul into anything like that? One couldn't +help but watch him if he weren't making a sound." + +"It's certainly refreshing, in a world where we all try to cover up our +real feelings, to see anybody give himself away so naively as that," +Chester replied. "But there's no doubt about the quality of his music. +He was born, not made. And, by George, Len certainly plays up to him. I +didn't know she had it in her, for all I've been admiring her +accomplishments for four years." + +"Ellen's all temperament, anyway," said Ellen's sister. + +Chester looked at her curiously. Martha was a fine-looking young woman, +in a very wholesome and clean-cut fashion. There was no feminine +artfulness in the way she bound her hair smoothly upon her head, none in +the plain cut of her simple evening attire, absolutely none in her +manner. Glancing from Martha to her sister, as he had often done before +in wonderment at the contrast between them, he noted as usual how +exquisitely Ellen was dressed, though quite as simply, in a way, as her +practical sister. But in every line of her smoke-blue silken frock was +the most subtle art, as Chester, who had a keen eye for such matters and +a fastidious taste, could readily recognize. From the crown of her dark +head to the toe of the blue slipper with which she pressed the pedal of +the great piano which she had brought from her old home in the South, +she was a picture to feast one's eyes upon. + +"Give me temperament, then--and let some other fellow take the common +sense," mused Arthur Chester to himself. "Ellen has both, and Red's in +luck. It was a great day for him when the lovely young widow came his +way--and he knows it. What a home she makes him--what a home!" + +His eyes roved about the beautiful living room, as they had often done +before. His own home, next door, was comfortable and more than +ordinarily attractive, but he knew of no spot in the town which +possessed the subtle charm of this in which he sat. His wife, Winifred, +was always trying to reproduce within their walls the indefinable +quality which belonged to everything Ellen touched, and always saying in +despair, "It's no use--Ellen is Ellen, and other people can't be like +her." + +"Better let it go at that," her husband sometimes responded. "You're +good enough for me." Which was quite true, for Winifred Chester was a +peculiarly lovable young woman. He noted afresh to-night that beside +Martha Macauley's somewhat heavy good looks Winifred seemed a creature +of infinite and delightful variety. + +Perhaps the music had made them all more or less analytic, for in an +interval James Macauley, comfortably ensconced in a great winged chair +for which he was accustomed to steer upon entering this room, where he +was nearly as much at home as within his own walls, remarked, "What is +there about music like that that sets you to thinking everybody in sight +is about the best ever?" + +"Does it have that effect on you?" queried Burns, lazily, from the blue +couch. "That's a good thing for a fellow of a naturally critical +disposition." + +"Critical, am I? Why, within a week I paid you the greatest compliment +in my power." + +"Really!" + +"If it hadn't been for me this company would never have been gathered, +to listen to these wondrous strains." + +"How's that?" Burns turned on him a suddenly interested eye. + +"Oh, I'm not telling. It's enough that the thing came about." Macauley +looked around for general approbation. + +Red Pepper sat up. "It was you stood the poor beggar up under my window, +on that howling night, was it, Jim? I've been looking for the man that +did it." + +"Why," said Macauley comfortably, "the chap asked me to point him to a +doctor's office--said he had a bit of a cold. I said you were the one +and only great and original M.D. upon earth, and as luck would have it +he was almost at your door. I said that if he didn't find you in he +should come over to my house and we would fix him up with cough drops. +He thanked me and passed on. As luck would have it you were in." + +Red Pepper glared at him. A chuckle from Arthur Chester caused him to +turn his eyes that way. He scrutinized his guests in turn, and detected +signs of mirth. Winifred Chester's pretty shoulders were shaking. Martha +Macauley's lips were pressed close together. The others were all +smiling. + +Burns turned upon Winifred, who sat nearest. "Tell me the truth about +this thing," he commanded. + +She shook her head, but she got no peace until at length she gave him +the tale. + +"Arthur and I were over at Jim's. He came in and said a wager was up +among some men outside as to whether if that poor boy came and fiddled +under your window you'd take him in and keep him over night. Somebody'd +been saying things against you, down street somewhere--" she hesitated, +glancing at her husband, who nodded, and said, "Go on--he'll have it out +of us now, anyhow." + +"They said," she continued, "that you were the most brutal surgeon in +the State, and that you hadn't any heart. Some of them made this wager, +and they all sneaked up here behind the one that steered Franz to your +window." + +Burns's quick colour had leaped to his face at this recital, as they +were all accustomed to see it, but for an instant he made no reply. +Winifred looked at him steadily, as one who was not afraid. + +"We were all in a dark window watching. If you hadn't taken him in we +would. But--O Red! We knew--we knew that heart of yours." + +"And who started that wager business?" Burns inquired, in a muffled +voice. + +"Why, Jim, of course. Who else would take such a chance?" + +"Was it a serious wager?" + +"Of course it was." + +"Even odds?" + +"No, it was Jim against the crowd. And for a ridiculously high stake." + +Red Pepper glared at James Macauley once more. "You old pirate!" he +growled. "How dared you take such a chance on me? And when you know I'm +death on that gambling propensity of yours?" + +"I know you are," replied Macauley, with a satisfied grin. "And you know +perfectly well I haven't staked a red copper for a year. But that sort +of talk I overheard was too much for me. Besides, I ran no possible risk +for my money. I was betting on a sure thing." + +Burns got up, amidst the affectionate laughter which followed this +explanation, and walked over to where Franz stood, his eager eyes fixed +upon his new and adored friend, who, he somehow divined, was the target +for some sort of badinage. + +"Little Hungary," he said, smiling into the uplifted, boyish face, with +his hand on the slender shoulder, "it came out all right that time, but +don't you ever play under my window again in a January blizzard. If you +do, I'll kick you out into the storm!" + + + + +CHAPTER III + +ANNE LINTON'S TEMPERATURE + + +"Is Doctor Burns in?" + +"He's not in. He will be here from two till five this afternoon. Could +you come then?" Miss Mathewson regarded the young stranger at the door +with more than ordinary interest. The face which was lifted to her was +one of quite unusual beauty, with astonishing eyes under resolute dark +brows, though the hair which showed from under the small and +close-fitting hat of black was of a wonderful and contradictory colour. +It was almost the shade, it occurred to Amy Mathewson, of that which +thatched the head of Red Pepper Burns himself, but it was more +picturesque hair than his, finer of texture, with a hint of curl. The +mass of it which showed at the back as the stranger turned her head away +for a moment, evidently hesitating over her next course of action, had +in it tints of bronze which were more beautiful than Burns's coppery +hues. + +"Would you care to wait?" inquired Miss Mathewson, entirely against her +own principles. + +It was not quite one o'clock, and Burns always lunched in the city, +after his morning at the hospital, and reached home barely in time for +those afternoon village office hours which began at two. His assistant +did not as a rule encourage the arrival of patients in the office as +early as this, knowing that they were apt to become impatient and +aggrieved by their long wait. But something about the slightly drooping +figure of the girl before her, in her black clothes, with a small +handbag on her arm, and a look of appeal on her face, suggested to the +experienced nurse that here was a patient who must not be turned away. + +The girl looked up eagerly. "If I might," she said in a tone of relief. +"I really have nowhere to go until I have seen the Doctor." + +Miss Mathewson led her in and gave her the most comfortable chair in the +room, a big, half shabby leather armchair, near the fireplace and close +beside a broad table whereon the latest current magazines were arranged +in orderly piles. The girl sank into the chair as if its wide arms were +welcome after a weary morning. She looked up at Miss Mathewson with a +faint little smile. + +"I haven't been sitting much to-day," she said. + +"This first spring weather makes every one feel rather tired," replied +Amy, noting how heavy were the shadows under the brown eyes with their +almost black lashes--an unusual combination with the undeniably russet +hair. + +From her seat at the desk, where she was posting Burns's day book, the +nurse observed without seeming to do so that the slim figure in the old +armchair sat absolutely without moving, except once when the head +resting against the worn leather turned so that the cheek lay next it. +And after a very short time Miss Mathewson realized that the waiting +patient had fallen asleep. She studied her then, for something about the +young stranger had aroused her interest. + +The girl was obviously poor, for the black suit, though carefully +pressed, was of cheap material, the velvet on the small black hat had +been caught in more than one shower, and the black gloves had been many +times painstakingly mended. The small feet alone showed that their owner +had allowed herself one luxury, that of good shoes--and the daintiness +of those feet made a strong appeal to the observer. + +As for the face resting against the chair back, it was flushed after a +fashion which suggested illness rather than health, and Miss Mathewson +realized presently that the respiration of the sleeper was not quite +what it should be. Whether this were due to fatigue or coming illness +she could not tell. + +Half-past one! The first early caller was slowing a small motor at the +curb outside when Amy Mathewson gently touched the girl's arm. "Come +into the other room, please," she said. + +The brown eyes opened languidly. The black-gloved hand clutched at the +handbag, and the girl rose. "I'm so sorry," she murmured. "I don't know +how I came to go to sleep." + +"You were tired out. If I had known I should have brought you in here +before," Amy said, leading her into the consulting room. "It is still +half an hour before Doctor Burns will be in, and you must lie here on +his couch while you wait." + +"Oh, thank you, but I ought not to go to sleep. I--have you just a +minute to spare? I should like to show you a little book I am selling--" + +Miss Mathewson suffered a sudden revulsion of feeling. So this girl was +only a book agent. First on the list of what by two o'clock would be a +good-sized assemblage of waiting patients, she must not be allowed to +take Doctor Burns's time to exploit her wares. Yet, even as Amy +regretted having brought a book agent into this inner sanctum, the girl +looked up from searching in her handbag and seemed to recognize the +prejudice she had excited. + +"Oh, but I'm a patient, too," she said with a little smile. "I didn't +expect to take the Doctor's time telling him about the book. But you--I +thought you might be interested. It's a little book of bedtime stories +for children. They are very jolly little tales. Would you care to see +it?" + +Now Amy Mathewson was the fortunate or unfortunate--as you happen to +regard such things--possessor of a particularly warm heart, and the +result of this appeal was that she took the book away with her into the +outer office, promising to look it over if the seller of it would lie +down upon the couch and rest quietly. She was convinced that the girl +was much more than weary--she was very far from well. The revealing +light of that consulting room had struck upon the upturned face and had +shown Miss Mathewson's trained eyes certain signs which alarmed her. + +So it came about that Red Pepper Burns, coming in ruddy from his +twelve-mile dash home, and feeling particularly fit for the labours of +the afternoon in consequence of having found every hospital patient of +his own on the road to recovery--two of them having taken a +right-about-face from a condition which the day before had pointed +toward trouble--discovered his first office patient lying fast asleep +upon the consulting room couch. + +"She seemed so worn out I put her here," explained Miss Mathewson, +standing beside him. "She falls asleep the moment she is off her feet." + +"Hm--m," was his reply as he thrust his arms into his white +office-jacket. "Well, best wake her up, though it seems a pity. Looks as +if she'd been on a hunger strike, eh?" he added under his breath. + +Miss Mathewson had the girl awake again in a minute, and she sat up, an +expression of contrition crossing her face as she caught sight of the +big doctor at the other side of the room, his back toward her. When +Burns turned, at Amy's summons, he beheld the slim figure sitting +straight on the edge of the broad couch, the brown eyes fixed on him. + +"Tired out?" he asked pleasantly. "Take this chair, please, so I can see +all you have to tell me--and a few things you don't tell me." + +It did not take him long. His eyes on the face which was too flushed, +his fingers on the pulse which beat too fast, his thermometer +registering a temperature too high, all told him that here was work for +him. The questions he asked brought replies which confirmed his fears. +Nothing in his manner indicated, however, that he was doing considerable +quick thinking. His examination over, he sat back in his chair and began +a second series of questions, speaking in a more than ordinarily quiet +but cheerful way. + +"Will you tell me just a bit about your personal affairs?" he asked. "I +understand that you come from some distance. Have you a home and +family?" + +"No family--for the last two years, since my father died." + +"And no home?" + +"If I am ill, Doctor Burns, I will look after myself." + +He studied her. The brown eyes met the scrutinizing hazel ones without +flinching. Whether or not the spirit flinched he could not be sure. The +hazel eyes were very kindly. + +"You have relatives somewhere whom we might let know of this?" + +She shook her head determinedly. Her head lifted ever so little. + +"You are quite alone in the world?" + +"For all present purposes--yes, Doctor Burns." + +"I can't just believe," he said gently, "that it is not very important +to somebody to know if you are ill." + +"It is just my affair," she answered with equal courtesy of manner but +no less finally. "Believe me, please--and tell me what to do. Shall I +not be better to-morrow--or in a day or two?" + +He was silent for a moment. Then, "It is not a time for you to be +without friends," said Red Pepper Burns. "I will prove to you that you +have them at hand. After that you will find there are others. I am +going to take you to a pleasant place I know of, where you will have +nothing to do but to lie still and rest and get well. The best of nurses +will look after you. You will obey orders for a little--my orders, if +you want to trust me--" + +"Where is this place?" The question was a little breathless. + +"Where do you guess?" + +"In--a hospital?" + +"In one of the best in the world." + +"I am--pretty ill then?" + +"It's a bit of a wonder," said Burns in his quietest tone, "how you have +kept around these last four days. I wish you hadn't." + +"If I hadn't," said the girl rather faintly, "I shouldn't have been in +this town and I shouldn't have come to Doctor Burns. So--I'm glad I +did." + +"Good!" said Burns, smiling. "It's fine to start with the confidence of +one's patient. I'm glad you're going to trust me. Now we'll take you to +another room where you can lie down again till my office hours are over +and I can run into the city with you." + +He rose, beckoning. But his patient protested: "Please tell me how to +get there. I can go perfectly well. My head is better, I think." + +"That's lucky. But the first of my orders Miss Linton, is that you come +with me now." + +He summoned Miss Mathewson, gave her directions, and dismissed the two. +In ten minutes the heavy eyes were again closed, while their owner lay +motionless again upon a bed in an inner room which was often used for +such purposes. + +"I'm sorry I can't take her in now," Burns said to Amy presently in an +interval between patients. "I don't want to call the ambulance out here +for a walking case, and there's no need of startling her with it, +anyhow. I wish I had some way to send her." + +"Mr. Jordan King just came into the office. His car is outside. Couldn't +he take her in?" + +"Of course he could--and would, I've no doubt. He's only after his +mother's prescription. Send him in here next, will you, please?" + +To the tall, well-built, black-eyed young man who answered this summons +in some surprise at being admitted before his turn, Burns spoke crisply: + +"Here's the prescription, Jord, and you'll have to take it to Wood's to +get it filled. I hope it'll do your mother a lot of good, but I'm not +promising till I've tried it out pretty well. Now will you do me a +favour?" + +"Anything you like, Doctor." + +"Thanks. I'm sending a patient to the hospital--a stranger stranded here +ill. She ought not to be out of bed another hour, though she walked to +the office and would walk away again if I'd let her--which I won't. I +can't get off for three hours yet. Will you take her in to the Good +Samaritan for me? I'll telephone ahead, and some one will meet her at +the door. All right?" + +He looked up. Jordan King--young civil engineer of rising reputation in +spite of the family wealth which would have made him independent of his +own exertions, if he could possibly have been induced by an adoring, +widowed mother to remain under her wing--stood watching him with a smile +on his character-betraying lips. + +"You ought to have an executive position of some sort, Doctor Burns," he +observed, "you're so strong on orders. I've got mine. Where's the lady? +Do I have to be silent or talkative? Is she to have pillows? Am I to +help her out?" + +"She'll walk out--but that and the walk in will be the last she'll take +for some time. Talk as much as you like; it'll help her to forget that +she's alone in the world at present except for us. Go out to your car; +I'll send her out with Miss Mathewson." + +Burns turned to his desk, and King obediently went out. Five minutes +later, as he stood waiting beside his car, a fine but hard-used roadster +of impressive lines and plenty of power, the office nurse and her +patient emerged. King noted in some surprise the slender young figure, +the interest-compelling face with its too vivid colour in cheeks that +looked as if ordinarily they were white, the apparel which indicated +lack of means, though the bearing of the wearer unmistakably suggested +social training. + +"I thought she'd be an elderly one somehow," he said in congratulation +of himself. "Jolly, what hair! Poor little girl; she does look sick--but +plucky. Hope I can get her in all right." + +Outwardly he was the picture of respectful attention as Miss Mathewson +presented him, calling the girl "Miss Linton," and bidding him wrap her +warmly against the spring wind. + +"I'll take the best care of her I know," he promised with a friendly +smile. He tucked a warm rug around her, taking special pains with her +small feet, whose well-chosen covering he did not fail to note. "All +right?" he asked as he finished. + +"Very comfortable, thank you. It's ever so kind of you." + +"Glad to do anything for Doctor Burns," King responded, taking his place +beside her. "Now shall we go fast or slow?" + +"Just as you like, please. I don't feel very ill just now, and this air +is so good on my face." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +TWO RED HEADS + + +Jordan King set his own speed in the powerful roadster, reflecting that +Miss Linton, to judge from her worn black clothes, was probably not +accustomed to motoring and so making the pace a moderate one. Fast or +slow, it would not take long to cover the twelve miles over the +macadamized road to the hospital in the city, and if it was to be her +last bath in the good outdoors for some time, as the doctor had +said--King drew a long breath, filling his own sturdy lungs with the +balmy yet potent April air, feeling very sorry for the unknown little +person by his side. + +"Would you rather I didn't talk?" he inquired when a mile or two had +been covered in silence. + +She lifted her eyes to his, and for the first time he got a good look +into them. They were very wonderful eyes, and none the less wonderful +because of the fever which made them almost uncannily brilliant between +their dark lashes. + +"Oh, I wish you would talk, if you don't mind!" she answered--and he +noted as he had at first how warmly pleasant were the tones of her +voice, which was a bit deeper than one would have expected. "I've heard +nobody talk for days--except to say they didn't care to buy my book." + +"Your book? Have you written a book?" + +"I'm selling one." This astonished him, but he did not let it show. It +was certainly enough to make any girl ill to have to go about selling +books. He wondered how it happened. She opened her handbag and took out +the small book. "I don't want to sell you one," she said. "You wouldn't +have any use for it. It's a little set of stories for children." + +"But I do want to buy one," he protested. "I've a lot of nieces and +nephews always coming at me for stories." + +She shook her head. "You can't buy one. I'd like to give you one if you +would take it, to show you how I appreciate this beautiful drive." + +"Of course I'll take it," he said quickly, "and delighted at the +chance." He slipped the book into his pocket. "As for the drive, it's +much jollier not to be covering the ground alone. I wish, though--" and +he stopped, feeling that he was probably going to say the wrong thing. + +She seemed to know what it would have been. "You're sorry to be taking +me to the hospital?" she suggested. "You needn't be. I didn't want to +go, just at first, but then--I felt I could trust the Doctor. He was so +kind, and his hair was so like mine, he seemed like a sort of big older +brother." + +"Red Pepper Burns seems like that to a lot of people, including myself. +I don't look like much of a candidate for illness, but I've had an +accident or two, and he's pulled me through in great shape. You're right +in trusting him and you can keep right on, to the last ditch--" He +stopped short again, with an inward thrust at himself for being so +blundering in his suggestions to this girl, who, for all he knew, might +be on her way to that "last ditch" from which not even Burns could save +her. + +But the girl herself seemed to have paused at his first phrase. "What +did you call the Doctor?" she asked, turning her eyes upon him again. + +"What did I--oh! 'Red Pepper.' Yes--I've no business to call him that, +of course, and I don't to his face, though his friends who are a bit +older than I usually do, and people speak of him that way. It's his +hair, of course--and--well, he has rather a quick temper. People with +that coloured hair--But you're wrong in saying yours is like his," he +added quickly. + +For the first time he saw a smile touch her lips. "So he has a quick +temper," she mused. "I'm glad of that--I have one myself. It goes with +the hair surely enough." + +"It goes with some other things," ventured Jordan King, determined, if +he made any more mistakes, to make them on the side of encouragement. +"Pluck, and endurance, and keeping jolly when you don't feel so--if you +don't mind my saying it." + +"One has to have a few of those things to start out into the world +with," said Miss Linton slowly, looking straight ahead again. + +"One certainly does. Doctor Burns understands that as well as any man I +know. And he likes to find those things in other people." Then with +tales of some of the Doctor's experiences which young King had heard he +beguiled the way; and by the time he had told Miss Linton a story or two +about certain experiences of his own in the Rockies, the car was +approaching the city. Presently they were drawing up before the group of +wide-porched, long buildings, not unattractive in aspect, which formed +the hospital known as the Good Samaritan. + +"It's a pretty good place," announced King in a matter-of-fact way, +though inwardly he was suffering a decided pang of sympathy for the +young stranger he was to leave within its walls. "And the Doctor said +he'd have some one meet us who knew all about you, so there'd be no +fuss." + +He leaped out and came around to her side. She began to thank him once +more, but he cut her short. "I'm going in with you, if I may," he said. +"Something might go wrong about their understanding, and I could save +you a bit of bother." + +She made no objection, and he helped her out. He kept his hand under her +arm as they went up the steps, and did not let her go until they were in +a small reception room, where they were asked to wait for a minute. He +realized now more than he had done before her weakness and the sense of +loneliness that was upon her. He stood beside her, hat in hand, wishing +he had some right to let her know more definitely than he had ventured +to do how sorry he was for her, and how she could count on his thinking +about her as a brother might while she was within these walls. + +But Burns's message evidently had taken effect, as his messages usually +did, for after a very brief wait two figures in uniform appeared, one +showing the commanding presence of a person in authority, the other +wearing the pleasantly efficient aspect of the active nurse. Miss Linton +was to be taken to her room at once, the necessary procedure for +admittance being attended to later. + +Miss Linton seemed to know something about hospitals, for she offered +instant remonstrance. "It's a mistake, I think," she said, lifting her +head as if it were very heavy, but speaking firmly. "I prefer not to +have a room. Please put me in your least expensive ward." + +The person in authority smiled. "Doctor Burns said room," she returned. +"Nobody here is accustomed to dispute Doctor Burns's orders." + +"But I must dispute them," persisted the girl. "I am not--willing--to +take a room." + +"Don't concern yourself about that now," said the other. "You can settle +it with the Doctor when he comes by and by." + +Jordan King inwardly chuckled. "I wonder if it's going to be a case of +two red heads," he said to himself. "I'll bet on R.P." + +The nurse put her arm through Miss Linton's. "Come," she said gently. +"You ought not to be standing." + +The girl turned to King, and put out her small hand in its mended glove. +He grasped it and dared to give it a strong pressure, and to say in a +low tone: "It'll be all right, you know. Keep a stiff upper lip. We're +not going to forget you." He very nearly said "I." + +"Good-bye," she said. "I shall not forget how kind you've been." + +Then she was gone through the big door, the tall nurse beside her +supporting steps which seemed suddenly to falter, and King was staring +after her, feeling his heart contract with sympathy. + + * * * * * + +Four hours later Anne Linton opened her eyes, after an interval of +unconsciousness which had seemed to the nurse who looked in now and then +less like a sleep than a stupor, to find a pair of broad shoulders +within her immediate horizon, and to feel the same lightly firm pressure +on her wrist that she had felt before that afternoon. She looked up +slowly into Burns's eyes. + +"Not so bad, is it?" said his low and reassuring voice. "Bed more +comfortable than doctor's office chairs? Won't mind if you don't ring +any door bells to-morrow? Just let everything go and don't worry--and +you'll be all right." + +"This room--" began the weary young voice--she was really much more +weary now that she had stopped trying to keep up than seemed at all +reasonable--"I can't possibly--" + +"It's just the place for you. Don't do any thinking on that point. You +know you agreed to take my orders, and this is one of them." + +"But I can't possibly--" + +"I said they were my orders," repeated Burns. "But that was a +misstatement. They're the orders of some one else, more powerful than I +am under this roof--and that's saying something, I assure you. I think +you'll have to meet my wife. She's come on purpose to see you. She was +away when you were at the office." + +He beckoned, and another figure moved quietly into range of the brown +eyes which were smoldering with the first advances of the fever. This +figure came around to the other side of the narrow high bed and sat down +beside it. Miss Linton looked into the face, as it seemed to her, of one +of the most attractive women she had ever seen. It was a face which +looked down at her with the sweetest sympathy in its expression, and yet +with that same high cheer which was in the face of the man on the other +side of the bed. + +"My dear little girl," said a low, rich voice, "this is my room, and I +often have the pleasure of seeing my special friends use it. And I come +to see them here. When you are getting well, as you will be by and by, I +can have much nicer talks with you than if you were in a ward. Now that +you understand, you will let me have my way?". + +The burning brown eyes looked into the soft black ones for a full +minute, then, with a long-drawn breath, the tense expression in the +stranger's relaxed. "I see," said the weary voice. "You are used to +having your way--just as he is. I'll have to let you because I haven't +any strength left to fight with. You are wonderfully kind. But--I'm not +a little girl." + +Ellen Burns smiled. "We'll play you are, for a while," she said. "And--I +want you to know that, little or big, you are my friend. So now you have +both Doctor Burns and me, and you are not alone any more." + +The heavy lashes closed over the brown eyes, and the lids were held +tightly shut as if to keep tears back. Seeing this, Ellen rose. + +"Red," she said, "are you going to let us have Miss Arden?" + +"Won't anybody else do?" + +"Do you need her badly somewhere else?" + +"If there were ten of her I could use them all!" declared her husband +emphatically. + +"Nevertheless--" + +Red Pepper Burns got up. He summoned a nurse waiting just outside the +door. "Please send Miss Arden here for a minute," he requested. Then he +turned back. "Are you satisfied with your power?" he asked his wife. + +She nodded. "Quite. But I think you feel, as I do, that this is one of +the ten places where she will be better than another." + +"She's a wonder, all right." + +The patient in the bed presently was bidden to look at her new nurse, +one who was to take care of her much of the time. She lifted her heavy +eyes unwillingly, then she drew another deep breath of relief. "I would +rather have you," she murmured to the serene brow, the kind eyes, the +gently smiling lips of the girl who stood beside her. + +"There's a tribute," laughed Burns softly. "They all feel like that when +they look at you, Selina. And what Mrs. Burns wants she usually gets. +You may special this case to-night, if you are ready to begin night duty +again." + +"I am quite ready," said Miss Arden. + +Burns turned to the bed again. "You are in the best hands we have to +give you," he said. "You are to trust everything to those hands. +Good-night. I'll see you in the morning." + +"Good-night, dear," whispered Mrs. Burns, bending for an instant over +the bed. + +"Oh you angels!" murmured the girl as they left her, her eyes following +them. + + * * * * * + +It was ten days later, in the middle of a wonderful night in early May, +that Miss Arden, beginning to be sure that the case which had interested +her so much was going to give her a hard time before it should be +through, listened to words which roused in her deeper wonder than she +had yet felt for the most unusual patient she had had in a long time. +Although there was as yet nothing that could be called real delirium, a +tendency to talk in a light-headed sort of way was becoming noticeable. +Sitting by the window, the one light in the room deeply shaded, she +heard the voice suddenly say: + + "This evens things up a little, doesn't it? I know a little + more about it now--you must realize that, if you are keeping + track of me--and I know you are--you would--even from another + world. Things aren't fair--they aren't. That you should have + to suffer all you did, to bring you to that pass--while I--But + I know a good deal about it now--really I do. And I'm going to + know more. I didn't sell a single book to-day. You had lots of + such days, didn't you? + Poor--pale--tired--heartsick--heartbroken girl!" + +A little mirthless laugh sounded from the bed. "I wonder how many people +ever let a person who is selling something at the door get into the +house. And if they let her in, do they ever, _ever_ ask her to sit down? +The places where I've stood, telling them about the book, while they +were telling me they didn't want it--stood and stood--and stood--with +great easy chairs in sight! Oh, that chair in my doctor's office--it was +the first chair I'd sat in that whole morning. I went to sleep in it, I +think." + +There followed a long silence, as if the thought of sleep had brought +it on. But then the rambling talk began again. + + "His hair is red--red, like mine. I think that's why his heart + is so warm. Yet her heart is warm, too, and her hair is almost + black. The other man's hair was pretty dark, too, and his + heart seemed--well, not exactly cold. Did he send me some + daffodils the other day? I can't seem to remember. It seems as + if I had seen some--pretty things--lovely, springy things. + Perhaps Mrs.--the red-headed doctor's wife--queer I can't + think of their names--perhaps she sent them. It would be like + her." + +The nurse's glance wandered, in the faint light, to where a great jar of +daffodils stood upon the farther window sill, their heads nodding +faintly in the night breeze. Jordan King's card, which had come with +them, was tucked away in a drawer near by with two other cards, bearing +the same name, which had accompanied other flowers. Miss Arden doubted +if her patient realized who had sent any of them. Afterward--if there +was to be an afterward--she would show the cards to her. Miss Arden, +like many other people, knew Jordan King by reputation, for the family +was an old and established one in the city, and the early success of the +youngest son in a line not often taken up by the sons of such families +was noteworthy. Also he was good to look at, and Miss Arden, +experienced nurse though she was and devoted to her profession, had not +lost her appreciation of youth and health and good looks in those who +were not her patients. + +Unexpectedly, at this hour of the night--it was well toward one +o'clock--the door suddenly opened very quietly and a familiar big figure +entered. Springing up to meet Doctor Burns, Miss Arden showed no +surprise. It was a common thing for this man, summoned to the hospital +at unholy hours for some critical case, to take time to look in on +another patient not technically in need of him. + +The head on the pillow turned at the slight sound beside it. Two wide +eyes stared up at Burns. "You've made a mistake, I think," said the +patient's voice, politely yet firmly. "My doctor has red hair. I know +him by that. Your hair is black." + +"I presume it is, in this light," responded Burns, sitting down by the +bed. "It's pretty red, though, by daylight. In that case will you let me +stay a minute?" His fingers pressed the pulse. Then his hand closed over +hers with a quieting touch. "Since you're awake," he said, "you may as +well have one extra bath to send you back to sleep." + +The head on the pillow signified unwillingness. "I'd take one to please +my red-headed doctor, but not you." + +"You'd do anything for him, eh?" questioned Burns, his eyes on the chart +which the nurse had brought him and upon which she was throwing the +light of a small flash. "Well, you see he wants you to have this bath; +he told me so." + +"Very well, then," she said with a sigh. "But I don't like them. They +make me shiver." + +"I know it. But they're good for you. They keep your red-headed doctor +master of the situation. You want him to be that, don't you?" + +"He'd be that anyway," said she confidently. + +Burns smiled, but the smile faded quickly. He gave a few brief +directions, then slipped away as quietly as he had come. + + * * * * * + +It was well into the next week when one morning he encountered Jordan +King, who had been out of town for several days. King came up to him +eagerly. Since this meeting occurred just outside the hospital, where +Burns's car had been standing in its accustomed place for the last hour, +it might not have been a wholly accidental encounter. + +King made no attempt to maneuver for information. Maneuvering with Red +Pepper Burns, as the young man was well aware, seldom served any +purpose but to subject the artful one to a straight exposure. He asked +his question abruptly. + +"I want to hear how Miss Linton is doing. I'm just back from +Washington--haven't heard for a week." + +Burns frowned. No physician likes to be questioned about his cases, +particularly if they are not progressing to suit him. But he answered, +in a sort of growl: "She's not doing." + +King looked startled. "You mean--not doing well?" + +"She's fighting for existence--and--slipping." + +"But--you haven't given her up?" + +Burns exploded with instant wrath. King might have known that question +would make him explode. "Given her up! Don't you know a red-headed fiend +like me better than that?" + +"I know you're a bulldog when you get your teeth in," admitted Jordan +King, looking decidedly unhappy and anxious. "If I'm just sure you've +got 'em in, that's enough." + +Burns grunted. The sound was significant. + +King ventured one more question, though Red Pepper's foot was on his +starter, and the engine had caught the spark and turned over. "If +there's anything I could do," he offered hurriedly and earnestly. +"Supply a special nurse, or anything--" + +Burns shook his head. "Two specials now, and half the staff interested. +It's up to Anne Linton and nobody else. If she can do the trick--she and +Nature--all right. If not--well--Thanks for letting go the car, Jord. +This happens to be my busy day." + +Jordan King looked after him, his heart uncomfortably heavy. Then he +stepped into his own car and drove away, taking his course down a side +street from which he could get a view of certain windows. They were wide +open to the May breeze and the sunshine, but no pots of daffodils or +other flowers stood on their empty sills. He knew it was useless to send +them now. + +"But if she does pull through," he said to himself between his teeth, +"I'll bring her such an armful of roses she can't see over the top of +'em. God send I get the chance!" + + + + +CHAPTER V + +SUSQUEHANNA + + +Red Pepper Burns drove into the vine-covered old red barn behind his +house which served as his garage, and stopped his engine with an air of +finality. + +"Johnny," said he, addressing the young man who was accustomed to drive +with him--and for him when for any reason he preferred not to drive +himself, which was seldom--and who kept the car in the most careful +trim, "not for man or beast, angel or devil will I go out again +to-night." + +Johnny Carruthers grinned. "No, sir," he replied. "Not unless they +happen to want you," he added. + +"Not if they offer me a thousand dollars for the trip," growled his +master. + +"You would for a dead beat, though," suggested the devoted servant, who +by virtue of five years of service knew whereof he spoke, "if he'd +smashed his good-for-nothin' head." + +"Not if he'd smashed his whole blamed body--so long as there was +another surgeon in the county who could do the job." + +"That's just the trouble," argued Johnny. "You'd think there wasn't." + +Red Pepper looked at him. "Johnny, you're an idiot!" he informed him. +Then he strode away toward the house. + +As he went into his office the telephone rang. The office was empty, for +it was dinner-time, and Miss Mathewson was having a day off duty on +account of her mother's illness. So, unhappily for the person at the +other end of the wire, the Doctor himself answered the ring. It had been +a hard day, following other hard days, and he was feeling intense +fatigue, devastating depression, and that unreasoning irritability which +is born of physical weariness and mental unrest. + +"Hello," shouted the victim of these disorders into the transmitter. +"What?... No, I can't.... What?... No. Get somebody else.... What?... I +can't, I say.... Yes, you can. Plenty of 'em.... What?... Absolutely +_no_! Good-bye!" + +"I ought to feel better after that," muttered Burns, slamming the +receiver on the hook. "But somehow I don't." + +In two minutes he was splashing in a hot bath, as always at the end of a +busy day. From the tub he was summoned to the telephone, the upstairs +extension, in his own dressing room. With every red hair erect upon his +head after violent towelling, he answered the message which reached his +unwilling ears. + +"What's that? Worse? She isn't--it's all in her mind. Tell her she's all +right. I saw her an hour ago. What?... Well, that's all imagination, as +I've told her ten thousand times. There's absolutely nothing the matter +with her heart.... No, I'm not coming--she's not to be babied like +that.... No, I won't. Good-bye!" + +The door of the room softly opened. A knock had preceded the entrance of +Ellen, but Burns hadn't heard it. He eyed her defiantly. + +"Do you feel much, much happier now?" she asked with a merry look. + +"If I don't it's not the fault of the escape valve. I pulled it wide +open." + +"I heard the noise of the escaping steam." She came close and stood +beside him, where he sat, half dressed and ruddy in his bathrobe. He put +up both arms and held her, lifting his head for her kiss, which he +returned with interest. + +"That's the first nice thing that's happened to me to-day--since the one +I had when I left you this morning," he remarked. "I'm all in to-night, +and ugly as a bear, as usual. I feel better, just this minute, with you +in my arms and a bath to the good, but I'm a beast just the same, and +you'd best take warning.... Oh, the--" + +For the telephone bell was ringing again. From the way he strode across +the floor in his bathrobe and slippers it was small wonder that the +walls trembled. His wife, watching him, felt a thrill of sympathy for +the unfortunate who was to get the full force of that concussion. With a +scowl on his brow he lifted the receiver, and his preliminary "Hello!" +was his deepest-throated growl. But then the scene changed. Red Pepper +listened, the scowl giving place to an expression of a very different +character. He asked a quick question or two, with something like a most +unaccustomed breathlessness in his voice, and then he said, in the +businesslike but kind way which characterized him when his sympathies +were roused: + +"I'll be there as quick as I can get there. Call Doctor Buller for me, +and let Doctor Grayson know I may want him." + +Rushing at the completion of his dressing he gave a hurried explanation, +in answer to his wife's anxious inquiry, "It isn't Anne Linton?" + +"It's worse, it's Jord King. He's had a bad accident--confound his +recklessness! I'm afraid he's made a mess of it this time for fair, +though I can't be sure till I get there." + +"Where is he?" Ellen's face had turned pale. + +"At the hospital. His man Aleck is hurt, too. Call Johnny, please, and +have him bring the car around and go with me." + +Ellen flew, and five minutes later watched her husband gulp down a cup +of the strong coffee Cynthia always made him at such crises when, in +spite of fatigue, he must lose no time nor adequately reenforce his +physical energy with food. + +"Oh, I'm so sorry you couldn't rest to-night," she said as he set down +the cup and, pulling his hat over his eyes, picked up the heavy surgical +bags. + +"Couldn't, anyway, with the universe on my mind, so I might as well keep +going," was Burns's gruff reply, though the kiss he left on her lips was +a long one and spoke his appreciation of her tender comradeship. + +She did not see him again till morning, though she lay awake many hours. +He came in at daylight; she heard the car go in at the driveway, and, +rising hurriedly, was ready to meet him when he came into the living +room downstairs. + +"Up so early?" questioned Burns as he saw her. The next minute he had +folded her in one of those strong-armed embraces which speak of a glad +return to one whose life is a part of one's own. "I wonder," he +murmured, with his cheek pressed to hers, "if a man ever came back to +sweeter arms than these!" + +But she knew, in spite of this greeting, that his heart was heavy. Her +own heart sank. But she waited, asking no questions. He would tell her +when he was ready. + +He drew her down upon the couch beside him and sat with his arm around +her. "No, I don't want to lie down just yet," he said. "I just want you. +I'm keeping you in suspense, I know; I oughtn't to do that. Jord's life +is all right, and he'll be himself again in time, but--well, I've lost +my nerve for a bit--I can't talk about it." + +His voice broke. By and by it steadied again; and, his weariness +partially lifted by the heartening little breakfast Ellen brought him on +a tray, he told her the story of the night: + +"Jord was coming in from the Coldtown Waterworks, forty miles out, late +for dinner and hustling to make up time. Aleck, the Kings' chauffeur, +was with him. They were coming in at a good clip, even for a back +street, probably twenty-five or thirty. There wasn't much on the street +except ahead, by the curb, a wagon, and coming toward him a big motor +truck. When he was fifty feet from the wagon a fellow stepped out from +behind it to cross the street. It was right under the arc light, and +Jord recognized Franz--'Little Hungary' you know--with his fiddle under +his arm, crossing to go in at the stage door of the Victoria Theatre, +where he plays. The boy didn't see them at all. + +"Neither Jord nor Aleck can tell much about it yet, of course, but from +the little I got I know as well as if I had been there what happened. He +slammed on the brakes--it was the only thing he could do, with the motor +truck taking up half the narrow street. The pavement was wet--a shower +was just over. Of course she skidded completely around to the left, just +missing the truck, and when she hit the curb over she went. She jammed +Jord between the car and the ground, injuring his back pretty badly but +not permanently, as nearly as I can make out. But she crushed Aleck's +right arm so that--" + +He drew a long breath, a difficult breath, and Ellen, listening, cried +out against the thing she instantly felt it meant. + +"O Red! You don't mean--" + +He nodded. "I took it off, an hour afterward--at the shoulder." + +Ellen turned white, and in a moment more she was crying softly within +the shelter of her husband's arm. He sat with set lips, and eyes staring +at the empty fireplace before him. Presently he spoke again, and his +voice was very low, as if he could not trust it: + +"Aleck was game. He was the gamest chap I ever saw. All he said when I +told him was, 'Go ahead, Doctor.' I never did a harder thing in all my +life. I suppose army surgeons get more or less used to it, but +somehow--when I knew what that arm meant to Aleck, and how an hour +before it had been a perfect thing, and now--" + +He did not try to tell her more just then, but later, when both were +steadied, he added a few more important details to the story: + +"Franz went to the hospital with them--wouldn't leave them--ran the risk +of losing his position. Do you know, Jord has been teaching that boy +English, evenings, and naturally Franz adores him. I suppose Jord would +have taken that skid for any blamed beggar who got in his way, but of +course it didn't take any force off the way he jammed on those brakes +when he saw it was a friend he was going to hit. And a friend he was +going to maim--pretty hard choice to make, wasn't it? But of course it +was sure death to Franz if he hit him, at that pace, so there was +nothing else to do but take the chance for himself and Aleck. Maybe you +can guess, though, how he feels about Aleck. One wouldn't think he knew +he'd been cruelly hurt himself." + +"Oh! I thought--" + +"Jord's back will give him a lot of trouble for a while, but his spine +isn't seriously injured, if I know my trade. Altogether--well--the +nurses have got a couple of interesting cases on their hands for a +while. No doubt Aleck will be well looked after. As for Jord--he'll be +so much the more helpless of the two for a while, I'm afraid he'll prove +a distraction that will demoralize the force." + +He smiled faintly for the first time, but his face sobered again +instantly. + +"Anne Linton's pretty weak, but she took a little nourishment sanely +this morning just before I came away. Miss Arden feels a trifle +encouraged. I confess this thing of Jord's has knocked the girl out of +my mind for the time being, though I shall get her back again fast +enough, if I don't find things going right when I see her. Well"--he +turned his wife's face toward him, with a hand against her cheek--"it's +all out now, and I'm eased a bit by the telling. I wish I could get +forty winks, just to make a break between last night and this morning." + +"You shall. Lie down and I'll put you to sleep." + +He did not think it possible, in spite of his exhaustion, but presently +under her quieting touch he was over the brink, greatly to Ellen's +relief. Her heart contracted with love and sympathy as she watched his +face. It was a weary face, now in its relaxation, and there were heavy +shadows under the closed eyes. Every now and then a frown crossed the +broad brow, as if the sleeper were not wholly at ease, could not forget, +even in his dreams, what he had had to do a few hours ago. She thought +of young Aleck with his manly, smiling face, his pride in keeping Jordan +King's car as fine and efficient beneath its hood--mud-splashed though +it often was without--as he did the shining limousine he drove for Mrs. +Alexander King, Jordan's mother. She thought of what it must be to him +now to know that he was maimed for life. As for King himself, she knew +him well enough to understand how his own injuries would count for +little beside his distress in having had to deal the blow which had +crushed that strong young arm of Aleck's. Her heart ached for them +both--and even for poor Franz, weeping at having been the innocent cause +of all this havoc. + +Two hours' sleep did his wife secure for Burns before he woke, stoutly +avowing himself fit for anything again, and setting off, immediately +breakfast was over, for the place to which his thoughts had leaped with +his first return to consciousness. + +"Can't rest till I see old Jord. Did I tell you that he insisted on +Aleck's having the room next his, precisely as big and airy as his own? +There's a door between, and when it's open they can see each other. When +I left Jord the door was open, and he was staring in at Aleck, who was +still sleeping off the anesthetic, and a big tear was running down +Jord's cheek. He can't stir himself, but that doesn't seem to bother him +any. He's going to suffer a lot of pain with his back, but he'll suffer +ten times more looking at that bandaged shoulder of Aleck's." + + * * * * * + +It was four days later that Ellen saw King. She was prepared to find +him, as Burns had called him, "game," but she had not known just all +that term means among men when it is applied to such a one as he. If he +had been receiving her after having suffered a bad wrench of the ankle +he could not have treated the occasion more simply. + +"This is mighty good of you," he said, reaching up a well-developed +right arm from his bed, where he lay flat on his back without so much as +a pillow beneath his head. His hair was carefully brushed, his bandages +were concealed, his lips were smiling, and altogether he was, except for +his prostrate position, no picture of an invalid. + +"I've just been waiting to come," she said, returning the firm pressure +of his hand with that of both her own. + +"And meanwhile you've kept me reminded of you by these wonderful +flowers," he said with a nod toward the ranks on ranks of roses which +crowded table and window sills. + +"Oh, but not all those!" she denied. "I might have known you would be +deluged with them. Daisies and buttercups out of the fields would have +been better." + +"No, because those you sent look like you. Doctor Burns won't grudge me +the pleasure of saying now what I like to his wife--and it's the first +time I've really dared tell you what I thought." + +"What a charming compliment! But I'm going to send you something much +more substantial now--good things to eat, and books to read, if I can +just find out what you like--and even games to play, if you care for +them." + +"I'll be delighted, if they're something Aleck and I can play together. +You see when that door is open we aren't far apart, and it won't be +long, Doctor Burns says, before he'll be walking in here to keep me +company--till he gets out." + +"He is doing well, I hear. I'm so glad." + +"Yes, that husky young constitution of his is telling finely--plus your +husband's surgery. My poor boy!" He shut his lips upon the words, and +kept them closely pressed together for an instant. "My word, Mrs. +Burns--he's the stuff that heroes are made of! His living to earn for +the rest of his life--with one arm--and you'd think he'd lost the tip of +one finger. If ever I let that boy go out of my employ--why, he's worth +more as a shining example of pluck than other men are worth with two +good arms!" + +"I must go and see him--if he'd care to have me." + +"He'd take it as the honour of his life. He's crazy over the flowers you +sent him." + +"Would he care for books? And what sort? I'm going to bring both of you +books." + +"Stories of adventure will suit Aleck--the wilder the better. Odd +choice--for such a peaceable-looking fellow, isn't it? As for +me--something I'll have to work hard to listen to, something to keep an +edge on my mind. I've counted the cracks in the ceiling till I have a +map of them by heart. I've worked out a system by which I can drain that +ceiling country and raise crops there. There isn't much else in this +room that I can count or lay out--worse luck! So I've named all the +roses, and have wagers with myself as to which will fade first. I'm +betting on Susquehanna, that big red one, to outlast all the rest." + + * * * * * + +When Red Pepper looked in half an hour later, it was to find the door +open between the two rooms, and his wife listening, smiling, to an +incident of the night just past, as told by first one patient and then +the other. The two young men might have been two comrades lying beside a +campfire, so gay was their jesting with each other, so light their +treatment of the wakeful hours both had spent. + +"No, there's nothing the matter with either of them," observed Burns, +looking from one bedside to the other. "Franz is the chap with the heavy +heart; these two are just enjoying a summer holiday. But I'm not going +to keep the communication open long at a time, as yet." + +He went in to see Aleck, closing the door again. When he returned he +took up a position at the foot of King's bed, regarding him in silence. +Ellen looked up at her husband. There was something in his face which +had not been there of late--a curiously bright look, as if a cloud were +lifted. She studied him intently, and when he returned the scrutiny she +raised her eyebrows in an interrogation. He nodded, smiling quizzically. + +"Jord," he said, "if you want to keep your secrets to yourself, beware +of letting any woman come within range. My wife has just read me as if I +were an open book in large black type." + +"Bound in scarlet and gold," added Ellen. "Tell us, Red. You really have +good news?" + +"The best. I am pretty confident Anne Linton has turned the corner. I +hoped it yesterday, but wasn't sure enough to say so. Did you know that, +too?" + +"Of course. But you were in small type yesterday. To-day he who runs may +read. You would know it yourself, wouldn't you, Jordan?" + +The man in the bed studied the man who stood at its foot. The two +regarded each other as under peculiar circumstances men do who have a +strong bond of affection and confidence between them. + +"He's such a bluffer," said King. "I hadn't supposed anybody could tell +much about what he was thinking. But I do see he looks pretty jolly this +morning, and I don't imagine it's all bluff. I'm certainly glad to hear +Miss Linton is doing well." + +"Doing well isn't exactly the phrase even now," admitted Red Pepper. +"There are lots of things that can happen yet. But the wind and waves +have floated her little craft off the rocks, and the leaks in the boat +are stopped. If she doesn't spring any more, and the winds continue +favourable, we'll make port." + +Jordan King looked as happy as if he had been the brother of this +patient of Burns's, whom neither of them had known a month ago, and whom +one of them had seen but once. + +"That's great," he said. "I haven't dared to ask since I came here +myself, knowing how poor the prospects were the last time I did ask. I +was afraid I should surely hear bad news. When can we begin to send her +flowers again? Couldn't I send some of mine? I'd like her to have +Susquehanna there, and Rappahannock--and I think Arapahoe and Apache +will run them pretty close on lasting. Would you mind taking them to her +when you go?" His eyes turned to Mrs. Burns. + +"I'd love to, but I shall not dare to tell her you are here, just yet. +She is very weak, isn't she, Red?" + +"As a starved pussy cat. The flowers won't hurt her, but we don't want +to rouse her sympathies as yet." + +"I should say not. Don't mention me; just take her the posies," +instructed King, his cheek showing a slight access of colour. + +"You won't know whether Susquehanna wins your wager or not," Ellen +reminded him as she obediently separated the indicated blooms, +magnificent great hothouse specimens with stems like pillars. That the +finest of all these roses, not excepting those she had sent herself, had +come from private greenhouses, she well knew. The Kings lived in the +centre of the wealthiest quarter of the city, though not themselves +possessed of more than moderate riches. Their name, however, was an old +and honoured one, Jordan himself was a favourite, and none in the city +was too important to be glad to be admitted at his home. + +"Anything more I can do for you before I go?" inquired Burns of his +patient when Ellen had gone, smiling back at King from over the big +roses and promising to keep track of Susquehanna for him in her daily +visits. + +"Nothing, thank you. You did it all an hour ago, and left me more +comfortable than I expected to be just yet. I'm not sure whether it was +the dressing or the visit that did me the most good." + +"You're a mighty satisfactory sort of patient. That good clean blood of +yours is telling already in your recovery from shock. It tells in +another way, too." + +"What's that?" + +"Sheer pluck." + +King's eyelids fell. It meant much to him to stand well in the +estimation of this man, himself distinguished for the cool daring of his +work, his endurance of the hard drudgery of his profession as well as +the brilliant performance on occasion. "I'm glad you think so--Red +Pepper Burns," King answered daringly. Then, as the other laughed, he +added: "Do you know what would make me the most docile patient you could +ask?" + +"Docile doesn't seem just the word for you--but I'd be glad to know, in +case of emergency." + +"Let me call you that--the name your best friends have for you. It's a +bully name. I know I'm ten years younger--but--" + +"Good lack! Jordan King, call me anything you like! I'll appreciate it." + +"You've no idea how long I've wanted to do it--Red," vowed the younger +man, with the flush again creeping into his cheek. + +"Why didn't you long ago?" Burns demanded. "Surely dignity's no +characteristic of mine. If Anne Linton can call me 'Red Head' on no +acquaintance at all--" + +"She didn't do that!" King looked a little as if he had received a blow. + +"Only when she was off her head, of course. She took me for a wildcat +once, poor child. No, no--when she was sane she addressed me very +properly. She's back on the old decorous ground now. Made me a beautiful +little speech this morning, informing me that I had to stop calling her +'little girl,' for she was twenty-four years old. As she looks about +fifteen at the present, and a starved little beggar at that, I found it +a bit difficult to begin on 'Miss Linton,' particularly as I have been +addressing her as 'Little Anne' all the time." + +"Starved?" King seemed to have paused at this significant word. + +"Oh, we'll soon fill her out again. She's really not half so thin as +she might be under the old-style treatment. It strikes me you have a +good deal of interest in my patients, Jord. Shall I describe the rest of +them for you?" + +Burns looked mischievous, but King did not seem at all disturbed. + +"Naturally I am interested in a girl you made me bring to the hospital +myself. And at present--well--a fellow feeling, you know. I see how it +is myself now. I didn't then." + +"True enough. Well, I'll bring you daily bulletins from Miss Anne. And +when she's strong enough I'll break the news to her of your proximity. +Doubtless your respective nurses will spend their time carrying flowers +back and forth from one of you to the other." + +"More than likely," King admitted. "Anything to fill in the time. I'm +sorry I can't take her out in my car when she's ready. I've been +thinking, Doctor--Red," he went on hastily, "that there's got to be some +way for Aleck to drive that car in the future. I'm going to work out a +scheme while I lie here." + +"Work out anything. I'll prophesy right now that as soon as you get +fairly comfortable you'll think out more stuff while you're lying on +your back than you ever did in a given period of time before. It won't +be lost time at all; it'll be time gained. And when you do get back on +your legs--no, don't ask me when that'll be, I can't tell nor any other +fellow--but when you do get back you'll make things fly as they never +did before--and that's going some." + +"You _are_ a great bluffer, but I admit that I like the sound of it," +was King's parting speech as he watched Burns depart. + +On account of this latest interview he was able to bear up the better +under the immediately following visit of his mother, an +aristocratic-looking, sweet-faced but sad-eyed lady, who could not yet +be reconciled to that which had happened to her son, and who visited him +twice daily to bring hampers of fruit, food, and flowers, in quantity +sufficient to sustain half the patients in a near-by ward. She +invariably shed a few quiet tears over him which she tried vainly to +conceal, addressed him in a mournful tone, and in spite of his efforts +to cheer her managed to leave behind her after each visit an atmosphere +of depression which it took him some time and strength to overcome. + +"Poor mother, she can't help it," philosophized her son. "What stumps +me, though, is why one who takes life so hard should outlive a man like +my father, who was all that is brave and cheerful. Perhaps it took it +out of him to be always playing the game boldly against her fears. But +even so--give me the bluffers, like Red Pepper--and like Mrs. Red. +Jove! but she's a lovely woman. No wonder he adores her. So do I--with +his leave. And so does Anne Linton, I should imagine. Poor little +girl--what does she look like, I wonder?" + +If he could have seen her at that moment, holding Susquehanna against +her hollow young cheek, the glowing flower making the white face a +pitiful contrast, he would have been even more touched than he could +have imagined. Also--he would have felt that his wager concerning +Susquehanna was likely to be lost. It is not conducive to the life of a +rose to be loved and caressed as this one was being. But since it was +the first of her flowers that Anne Linton had been able to take note of +and enjoy, it might have been considered a life--and a wager--well lost. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +HEAVY LOCAL MAILS + + +Anne Linton lifted her head ever so little from the allowed incline of +her pillow in the Good Samaritan Hospital. She peered anxiously at the +tray being borne toward her by Selina Arden, most scrupulously +conscientious of all trained nurses, and never more rigidly exact than +when the early diet of patients in convalescence was concerned. + +"Is that all?" murmured Anne in a tone of anguish. + +"All!" replied Miss Arden firmly. But she smiled, showing her perfect +white teeth--and showing also her sympathy by the tone in which she +added: "Poor child!" + +"Shall I never, never, never," asked the patient, hungrily surveying the +tray at close range, "have enough just to dull these pangs a little? Not +enough to satisfy me, of course, but just enough to take the edge off?" + +"Very soon now," replied Miss Arden cheerily, "you shall have a pretty +good-sized portion of beefsteak, juicy and tender, and you shall eat it +all up--" + +"And leave not a wrack behind," moaned Anne Linton, closing her eyes. +"But you are wrong, Miss Arden--I shall not eat it, I shall _gulp_ +it--the way a dog does. I always wondered why a dog has no manners about +eating. I know now. He is so hungry his eyes eat it first, so his mouth +has no chance. Well, I'm certainly thankful for the food on this tray. +It's awfully good--what there is of it." + +She consumed it, making the process as lingering as was consistent with +the ravaging appetite which was a real torture. When the last mouthful +had vanished she set her eyes upon the clock--the little travelling +clock which was Miss Arden's and which had ticked busily and cheerfully +through all those days of illness when Anne's eyes had never once lifted +to notice the passage of time. + +"I was so long about it," said the girl gleefully, "that now it's only +two hours and forty minutes to the next refreshment station. I expect I +can keep on living till then if I use all my will power." + +"And here's something to make you forget how long two hours and forty +minutes are." + +Miss Arden went to the door and, returning, laid suddenly in Anne's arms +a great, fragrant mass of white bloom, at the smell and touch of which +she gave a half-smothered cry of rapture, and buried her face in the +midst of it. "White lilacs--oh, white lilacs! The dears--the loves! Oh, +where _did_ they come from?" + +"There's a note that came with them," admitted Miss Arden presently, +when she had let the question go unanswered for some time, while Anne, +seeming to forget that she had asked it, smelled and smelled of the cool +white and green branches as if she could never have enough of them. Into +her eyes had leaped a strange look, as if some memory were connected +with these outdoor flowers which made them different for her from the +hothouse blooms, or even from the daffodils and tulips that had +alternated with the roses which had come often since her convalescence +began. + +Anne reached up an eager hand for the note, a look of surprise on her +face. Miss Arden, looking back at her, noted how each day was helping to +remove the pallor and wanness from that face. At the moment, under the +caress of the lilacs and the surprise of the impending note, it was +showing once more a decided touch of its former beauty. Also she was +wearing a little invalid's wrap of lace and pink silk, given her by Mrs. +Burns, and this helped the effect. + +Anne unfolded the note. Miss Arden went away with the empty tray, and +remained away some time. Miss Arden, as has been said before, was a +most remarkable nurse. + +The note read thus: + + The Next Corridor, 10:30 A.M. + + DEAR MISS LINTON: + + The time has come, it seems to me, for two patients who have + nothing to do but while away the hours for a bit longer, to + help each other out. What do you say? I suppose you don't know + that I've been lying flat on my back now for a fortnight, + getting over a rather bad spill from my car. I'm pretty + comfortable now, thank you, so don't waste a particle of + sympathy; but the hours must certainly drag for you as they do + for me, and my idea is that we ought to establish some sort of + system of intercommunication. I have an awfully obliging + nurse, and a young man with a fiddle here besides, and I'd + like to send you a short musicale when you feel up to it. Are + you fond of music? I have a notion you are. Franz will come + and play for you whenever you say. But besides that I'd + awfully like to have a note from you as soon as you are able + to write. I'll answer it, you know--and then you'll answer + that, perhaps--and so the hours will go by. I know this is a + rather free-and-easy-sounding proposition from a perfect + stranger, as I suppose you think me, but circumstances do + alter cases, you know, and if our circumstances can't alter + our cases, then it's no good being laid up! + + Hearty congratulations on that raging appetite. You see Doctor + Burns is good enough to keep me informed as to how you come + on. You certainly seem to be coming on now. Please keep it up. + I shouldn't dare ask you to write to me if the Doctor hadn't + said you could--if you wouldn't do it enough to tire you. + So--I'm hoping. + + Yours, under the same roof, + + JORDAN KING. + +"Good morning!" said a beloved voice from the doorway. Anne looked up +eagerly from her letter. + +"Oh, Mrs. Burns--good morning! And won't you please stand quite still +for a minute while I look at you?" + +Ellen laughed. To other people than Anne Linton she was always the +embodiment of quiet charm in her freshness of attire and air of general +daintiness. In the pale gray and white of her summer clothing, with a +spray of purple lilac tucked into her belt, she was a vision to rest the +eye upon. "You are looking ever so well yourself to-day," Ellen said as +she sat down close beside Anne, facing her. "Another week and you will +be showing us what you really look like." + +"The little pink cover-up does me as much good as anything," declared +Anne. "I never thought I could wear pink with my carroty hair. But Miss +Arden says I can wear anything you say I can, and I believe her." + +"Your hair is bronze, not carroty, and that apricot shade of pink tones +in with it beautifully. What a glorious mass of white lilacs! I never +saw any so fine." + +"They're wonderful. I insisted on keeping them right here, I'm so fond of +the fragrance. They came from Mr. King," said Anne frankly. "And a note +from him says he's here in the hospital with an injured back. I'm so +sorry. Please tell me how badly he is hurt." + +"He will have to be patient for some weeks longer, I believe, but there +is no permanent injury. Meanwhile, he is like any man confined, restless +for want of occupation. Still, he keeps his time pretty full." And Ellen +proceeded to recount the story of Franz, and of how Jordan King was +continuing here in the hospital to teach him to speak English, finding +him the quickest and most grateful of pupils. + +"How splendid of him! He's going to send Franz to play for me. I can't +think of anything--except beefsteak--I should like so much!" and Anne +laughed, her face all alight with interest. But the next instant it +sobered. "Mrs. Burns," she said, "there's something I want to say very +much, and so far the Doctor hasn't let me. But I'm quite strong enough +now to begin to make plans, and one of them is this: The minute I'm able +to leave the hospital I want to go to some inexpensive place where I can +stay without bothering anybody. You have all been so wonderful to me I +can never express my gratitude, but I'm beginning to feel--oh, can't you +guess how anxious I am to be taking care of myself again? And I want you +to know that I have quite money enough to do it until I can go on with +my work." + +Mrs. Burns looked at her. In the excitement of talking the girl's face +looked rounder and of a better colour than it had yet shown, and her +eyes were glowing, eyes of such beauty as are not often seen. But for +all that, she seemed like some lovely child who could no more take care +of itself than could a newborn kitten. Ellen laid one hand on hers. + +"You are not to think about such things yet, dear," she said. "Do you +imagine we have not grown very fond of you, and would let you go off +into some place alone before you are fully yourself again? Not a bit of +it. As soon as you can leave here you are coming to me as my guest. And +when you are playing tennis with Bob, on our lawn, you may begin to talk +about plans for the future." + +Anne stared back at her, a strange expression on her face. "Oh, no!" she +breathed. + +"Oh, yes! You can't think how I am looking forward to it. Meanwhile--you +are not to tire yourself with talking. I only stopped for a minute, and +the Doctor is waiting by now. Good-bye, my dear." And before Anne could +protest she was gone, having learned, by experience, that the way to +terminate useless argument with the one who is not strong enough to be +allowed to argue is by making early escape. + +That afternoon, having recovered from the two surprises of the morning, +Anne asked for pencil and paper. Miss Arden, supplying them, stipulated +that their use should cover but five minutes. + +"It is one of the last things we let patients do," she said, "though it +is the thing they all want to do first. There is nothing so tiring as +letter writing." + +"I'm not going to write a letter," Anne replied, "just a hail to a +fellow sufferer. Only I'm no sufferer, and I'm afraid he is." + +She wrote her note, and it was presently handed to Jordan King. He had +wondered very much what sort of answer he should have, feeling that +nothing could reveal the sort of person this girl was so surely as a +letter, no matter how short. He had been sure he recognized education in +her speech, breeding in her manner, high intelligence as well as beauty +in her face, but--well, the letter would reveal. And so it did, though +it was written in a rather shaky hand, in pencil, on one of Miss Arden's +hospital record blanks--of all things! + + DEAR MR. KING: + + It is the most wonderful thing in the world to be sitting up + far enough to be able to write and tell you how sorry I am + that you are lying down. But Mrs. Burns assures me that you + are fast improving and that soon you will be about again. + Meanwhile you are turning your time of waiting to a glorious + account in teaching poor Franz to speak English. Surely he + must have been longing to speak it, so that he might tell you + the things in his heart--about that dreadful night. But I know + you don't want me to write of that, and I won't. + + Of course I should care to have him play for me, and I hope + he may do it soon--to-morrow, perhaps. I wonder if he knows + the Schubert "_Fruehlingstraum_"--how I should love to hear it! + As for your interesting plan for relieving the passing hours, + I should hardly be human if I did not respond to it! Only + please never write when you don't feel quite like it--and + neither will I. + + The white lilacs were even more beautiful than the roses and + the daffodils. There was a long row of white lilac trees at + one side of a garden I used to play in--I shall never, never + forget what that fragrance was like after a rain! And now that + my sun is shining again--after the rain--you may imagine what + those white lilacs breathe of to me. + + With the best of good wishes, + + ANNE LINTON. + + +Jordan King read this note through three times before he folded it back +into its original creases. Then he shut it away in a leather-bound +writing tablet which lay by his side. "Franz," he said, addressing the +youth who was at this hour of the day his sole attendant, "can you play +Schubert's '_Fruehlingstraum_'?" + +He had to repeat this title several times, with varying accents, before +he succeeded in making it intelligible. But suddenly Franz leaped to an +understanding. + +"Yess--yess--yess--yess--sair," he responded joyously, and made a dive +for his violin case. + +"Softly, Franz," warned his master. As this was a word which had thus +far been often used in his education, on account of the fact that the +hospital did not belong exclusively to King--strange as that might seem +to Franz who worshipped him--it was immediately comprehended. Without +raising the tones of his instrument, Franz was able presently to make +clear to King that the music he was asked to play was of the best at his +command. + +"No wonder she likes that," was King's inward comment. "It's a strange, +weird thing, yet beautiful in a haunting sort of way, I imagine, to a +girl like her, and I don't know but it would be to me if I heard it many +times--while I was smelling lilacs in the rain," he added, smiling to +himself. + +That hint of a garden had rather taken hold of his imagination. More +than likely, he said to himself, it had been her own garden--only she +would not tell him so lest she seem to try to convey an idea of former +prosperity. A different sort of girl would have said "our garden." + + * * * * * + +Next morning, at the time of Mrs. Burns's visit to the hospital, King +sent Franz to play for Miss Linton. With her breakfast tray had come his +second note telling her of this intention, so she had two hours of +anticipation--a great thing in the life of a convalescent. With every +bronze lock in shining order, with the little wrap of apricot pink silk +and lace about her shoulders, with an extra pillow at her back, Miss +Anne Linton awaited the coming of the "Court Musician," as King had +called him. + +"It's a very good thing Jord can't see her at this minute," observed +Burns to his wife as he met her in the hall outside the door. "The +prettiest convalescent has less appeal for a doctor than a young woman +of less good looks in strapping health--naturally, for he gets quite +enough of illness and the signs thereof. But to a lusty chap like King +Miss Anne's present frail appearance would undoubtedly enlist his +chivalry. Those are some eyes of hers, eh?" + +"I think I have never seen more beautiful eyes," Ellen agreed heartily. + +Her husband laughed. "I have," he said, and went his way, having no time +for morning musicales. + +That afternoon Anne Linton, having had all her pillows removed and +having obediently lain still and silent for two long hours, was +permitted to sit up again and write a note to King to tell him of the +joy of the morning: + + DEAR MR. KING: + + It was as if the twilight were falling, with the stars coming + out one by one. By and by they were all shining, and I was on + a mountain top somewhere, with the wind blowing softly + against my face. It was dark and I was all alone, but I + didn't mind, for I was strong, strong again, and I knew I + could run down by and by and be with people. Then a storm came + on, and I lifted my face to if and loved it, and when it died + away the stars were shining again between the clouds. + Somewhere a little bird was singing--I opened my eyes just + there, and your Franz was looking at me and smiling, and I + smiled back. He seemed so happy to be making me happy--for he + was, of course. After a while it was dawn--the loveliest dawn, + all flushed with pink and silver, and I couldn't keep my eyes + shut any more for looking at the musician's face. He is a real + musician, you know, and the music he makes comes out of his + soul. + + When it was all over and he and Mrs. Burns were gone, my tray + came in. This is a frightful confession, but I am not a real + musician; I merely love good music with some sort of + understanding of what it means to those who really care, as + Franz does. To me, after all the emotion, my tray looked like + a sort of solid rock that I could cling to. And I had a piece + of wonderful beefsteak--ah, now you are laughing! Never + mind--I'll show you the two scenes. + +Upon the second sheet was something which made Jordan King open his +eyes. There were two little drawings--the simplest of pencil sketches, +yet executed with a spirit and skill which astonished him. The first was +of Franz himself, done in a dozen lines. There was no attempt at a +portrait, yet somehow Franz was there, in the very set of the head, the +angle of the lifted brow, the pose of the body, most of all in the +indication of the smiling mouth, the drooping eyelids. The second +picture was a funny sketch of a big-eyed girl devouring food from a +tray. Two lines made the pillows behind her, six outlined the tray, a +dozen more demonstrated plainly the famishing appetite with which the +girl was eating. It was all there--it was astonishing how it was all +there. + +"My word!" he said as he laid down the sheets--and took them up again, +"that's artist work, whether she knows it or not. She must know it, +though, for she must have had training. I wonder where and how." + +He called Miss Arden and showed her the sketches. + +"Dear me, but they're clever," she said. "They look like a child's +work--and yet they aren't." + +"I should say not," he declared very positively. "That sort of thing is +no child's work. That's what painters do when they're recording an +impression, and I've often looked in more wonder at such sketchy +outlines than at the finished product. To know how to get that +impression on paper so that it's unmistakable--I tell you that's +training and nothing else. I don't know enough about it to say it's +genius, too, yet I've had an artist friend tell me it cost him more to +learn to take the right sort of notes than to enlarge upon those notes +afterward." + +When he wrote to Anne next morning--he was not venturing to ask more of +her than one exchange a day--he told her what he thought about those +sketches: + + I've had that sheet pinned up at the foot of my bed ever since + it came, and I'm not yet tired of looking at it. You should + have seen Franz's face when I showed it to him. "Ze arteeste!" + he exclaimed, and laughed, and made eloquent gestures, by + means of which I judged he was trying to express you. He + looked as if he were trying to impress me with his own hair, + his eyes, his cheeks, his hands; but I knew well enough he + meant you. I gathered that he had been not ill pleased with + his visit to you, for he proposes another; in fact, I think he + would enjoy playing for you every day if you should care to + hear him so often. He does not much like to perform in the + wards, though he does it whenever I suggest it. He has + discovered that though they listen respectfully while he plays + his own beloved music, mostly they are happier when he gives + them a bit of American ragtime, or a popular song hit. His + distaste for that sort of thing is very funny. One would think + he had desecrated his beloved violin when he condescends to + it, for afterward he invariably gives it a special polishing + with the old silk handkerchief he keeps in the case--and Miss + Arden vows he washes his hands, too. Poor Franz! Your real + artist has a hard time of it in this prosaic world doesn't he? + +The note ended by saying boldly that King would like another sketch +sometime, and he even ventured to suggest that he would enjoy seeing a +picture of that row of white lilac trees at the edge of the garden where +Anne used to play. It was two days before he got this, and meanwhile a +box of water colours had come into requisition. When the sheet of heavy +paper came to King he lay looking at it with eyes which sparkled. + +At first sight it was just a blur of blues and greens, with irregular +patches of white, and gay tiny dashes of strong colour, pinks and +purples and yellows. But when, as Anne had bidden him, he held it at +arm's length he saw it all--the garden with its box-bordered beds full +of tall yellow tulips and pink and white and purple hyacinths--it was +easy to see that this was what they were, even from the dots and dashes +of colour; the hedge--it was a real hedge of white lilac trees, against +a spring sky all scudding clouds of gray. Like the sketch of Franz, its +charm lay entirely in suggestion, not in detail, but was none the less +real for that. + +There was one thing which, to King's observant eyes, stood out plainly +from the little wash drawing. This garden was a garden of the rich, not +of the poor. Just how he knew it so well he could hardly have told, +after all, for there was no hint of house, or wall, or even +summer-house, sundial, terrace, or other significant sign. Yet it was +there, and he doubted if Anne Linton knew it was there, or meant to have +it so. Perhaps it was that lilac hedge which seemed to show so plainly +the hand of a gardener in the planting and tending. The question +was--was it her own garden in which she had played, or the garden of her +father's employer? Had her father been that gardener, perchance? King +instantly rejected this possibility. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +WHITE LILACS + + +Burns, coming in to see King one day when the exchange of letters had +been going on for nearly a fortnight, announced that he might soon be +moved to his own home. + +King stared at him. "I'm not absolutely certain that I want to go till I +can get about on my own feet," he said slowly. + +Burns nodded. "I know, but that will be some time yet, and your +mother--well, I've put her off as long as I could, but without lying to +her I can't say it would hurt you now to be taken home. And lying's not +my long suit." + +"Of course not. And I suppose I ought to go; it would be a comfort to my +mother. But--" + +He set his lips and gave no further hint of his unwillingness to go +where he would be at the mercy of the maternal fondness which would +overwhelm him with the attentions he did not want. Besides--there was +another reason why, since he must for the present be confined somewhere, +he was loath to leave the friendly walls where there was now so much of +interest happening every day. Could he keep it happening at home? Not +without much difficulty, as he well foresaw. + +"Miss Linton's coming to us on Saturday," observed Burns carelessly, +strolling to the window with his hands in his pockets. + +"Is she? I didn't suppose she'd be strong enough just yet." King tried +to speak with equal carelessness, but the truth was that, with his life +bound, as it was at present, within the confines of this room, the +incidents of each day loomed large. + +"She's gaining remarkably fast. For all her apparent delicacy of +constitution when she came to us, I'm beginning to suspect that she's +the fortunate possessor of a good deal of vigour at the normal. She says +herself she was never ill before, and that's why she didn't give up +sooner--couldn't believe there was anything the matter. We can't make +her agree to stay with us a day longer than I say is a necessity for +safety." + +"Where does she want to go? Not back to that infernal book-agenting?" +There was a frown between King's well-marked brows. + +"Yes, I imagine that's what she intends. She's a very decided young +person, and there's not much use telling her what she must and must not +do. As for the book itself, it's pretty clever, my wife and Miss +Mathewson insist. They say the youngsters of the neighbourhood are +crazy over it. Bob knows it by heart, and even the Little-Un studies the +pictures half an hour at a time. If children were her buyers she'd have +no trouble." + +"Have a look at those, will you?" + +King reached for a leather writing case on the table at his elbow, took +out a pile of sheets, and began to hand them over one by one to Burns. + +"What's this? Hullo! Do you mean to say she did this? Well, I like her +impudence!" + +"So do I," laughed King, looking past Burns's shoulder at a saucy sketch +of the big Doctor himself evidently laying down the law about something, +by every vigorous line of protest in his attitude and the thrust of his +chin. Underneath was written: "Absolutely not! Haven't I said so a +thousand times?" + +"'Wad some power--'" murmured Burns. "Well, she seems to have the +'power.' I am rather a thunderer, I suppose. What's this next? My wife! +Jolly! that's splendid. Hasn't she caught a graceful pose though? +Ellen's to the life. Selina Arden? That's good--that's very good. +There's your conscientious nurse for you. And this, of herself? Ha! She +hasn't flattered herself any. She may have looked like that at one time, +but not now--hardly." + +"She's looking pretty well again, is she?" + +"Both pretty and well. We don't starve our patients on an exclusively +liquid diet the way we used to, and they don't come out of typhoid +looking half so badly in consequence. And she's been rounding out every +day for the last two weeks in fine shape. She's a great little girl, and +as full of spirit as a gray squirrel. I'm beginning to believe she's a +bit older than I would believe at first; that mind of hers is no +schoolgirl's; it's pretty mature. She says frankly she's twenty-four, +though she doesn't look over nineteen." + +"Is there any reason why I can't see her for a bit of a visit if she +goes Saturday?" asked King straightforwardly. It was always a +characteristic of his to go straight to a point in any matter; intrigue +and diplomacy were not for him in affairs which concerned a girl any +more than in those which pertained to his profession. "You see we've +been entertaining each other with letters and things, and it would seem +a pity not to meet--especially if she'll be leaving town before I'm +about." + +There was a curiously wistful look in his face as he said this, which +Burns understood. All along King had said almost nothing about the +torture his present helplessness was to him, but his friend knew. + +"Of course she'll come; we'll see to that. She's walking about a little +now, and by Saturday she can come down this corridor on her two small +feet." + +"See here--couldn't I sit up a bit to meet her?" + +"Not a sixteenth of a degree. You'll lie exactly as flat as you are now. +If it's any consolation I'll tell you that you look like a prostrate +man-angel seven feet long." + +"Thanks. I'd fire a pillow at you if I had one. I don't want to look +like an object for sympathy, that's all." + +Burns nodded understandingly. "Well, Jord," he said a moment later, +"will you go home on Saturday, too?" + +The two looked at each other. Then, "If you say so," King agreed. + +"All right. Then we'll get rid of two of our most interesting patients +on that happy day. Never mind--the mails will still carry--and Franz is +a faithful messenger. What's that, Miss Dwight? All right, I'll be +there." And he went out, with a gay nod and wave of the hand to the man +on the bed. + +This was on Monday. On Tuesday King offered his petition that Anne +Linton would pay him a visit before she left on Saturday. When the +answer came it warmed his heart more than anything he had yet had from +her: + + Of course I will come--only I want you to know that I shall be + dreadfully sorry to come walking, when you must still lie so + long on that poor back. Doctor Burns has told me how brave you + are, with all the pain you are still suffering. But I am + wonderfully glad to learn that he is so confident of your + complete recovery. Just to know that you can be your active + self again is wonderful when one thinks what might have + happened. I shall always remember you as you seemed to me the + day you brought me here. I was, of course, feeling pretty + limp, and the sight of you, in such splendid vigour, made me + intensely envious. And even though I see you now "unhorsed," I + shall not lose my first impression, because I know that by and + by you will be just like that again--looking and feeling as if + you were fit to conquer the world. + +It was the most personal note he had had from her, and he liked it very +much. He couldn't help hoping for more next day, and did his best to +secure it by the words he wrote in reply. But Wednesday's missive was +merely a merrily piquant description of the way she was trying her +returning strength by one expedition after another about her room. On +Thursday she sent him some very jolly sketches of her "packing up," and +on Friday she wrote hurriedly to say that she couldn't write, because +she was making little visits to other patients. + + * * * * * + +Jordan King had never been more exacting as to his dressing than on that +Saturday. He studied his face in the glass after an orderly had shaved +him, to make sure that the blue bloom it took but a few hours to +acquire had been properly subdued. He insisted on a particular silk +shirt to wear under the loose black-silk lounging robe which enveloped +him, and in which he was to be allowed to-day to lie upon the bed +instead of in it. His hair had to be brushed and parted three separate +times before he was satisfied. + +"I didn't know I was such a fop," he said, laughing, as Miss Dwight +rallied him on his preparations for receiving the ladies. "But somehow +it seems to make a difference when a man lies on his back. They have him +at a disadvantage. Now if you'll just give me a perfectly good +handkerchief I'll consider that the reception committee is ready. Thank +you. It must be almost time for them, isn't it?" + +For a young man who usually spent comparatively little of his time in +attentions to members of the other sex, but who was accustomed, +nevertheless, to be entirely at his ease with them, King acknowledged to +himself that he felt a curious excitement mounting in his veins as the +light footsteps of his guests approached. + +Mrs. Burns came first into his line of vision, wearing white from head +to foot, for it was early June and the weather had grown suddenly to be +like that of midsummer. Behind her followed not the black figure King's +memory had persistently pictured, but one also clad in white--the very +simple white of a plain linen suit, with a close little white hat drawn +over the bronze-red hair. Under this hat the eyes King remembered glowed +warmly, and now there was health in the face, which was so much more +charming than the one he recalled that for a moment he could hardly +believe the two the same. Yet--the profile, as she looked at Mrs. Burns, +who spoke first, was the one which had been stamped on his mind as one +not to be forgotten. + +She was looking at him now, and there was no pity in her bright +glance--he could not have borne to see it if it had been there. She came +straight up to the bed, her hand outstretched--her gloves were in the +other, as if she were on her way downstairs, as he presently found she +was. She spoke in a full, rich voice, very different from the weary one +he had heard before. + +"Do you know me?" she asked, smiling. + +"Almost I don't. Have you really been ill, or did you make it all up?" + +"I'm beginning to believe I did. I feel myself as if it must be all +dream. How glad I am to find you able to be dressed. Doctor Burns says +you will go home to-day, too." + +"This evening, I believe. I thought you were not going till then +either." + +"This very hour." She glanced at Mrs. Burns. "My good fairy begged that +I might go early, because it is her little son's birthday. I am to be +at a real party; think of that!" + +"The Little-Un's or Bob's?" King asked his other visitor. + +Bob was an adopted child, taken by Burns before his marriage, but the +little Chester's parents made no difference between them, and a birthday +celebration for the older boy was sure to be quite as much of an +occasion as for the two-year-old. + +"Bob's," Mrs. Burns explained. "He is ten; we can't believe it. And he +has set his heart on having Miss Linton at home for his party. He has +read her little book almost out of its covers, and she has been doing +some place-cards for his guests--the prettiest things!" Ellen opened a +small package she was carrying and showed King the cards. + +He gazed at them approvingly. "They're the jolliest I ever saw; the +youngsters will be crazy over them. For a convalescent it strikes me +Miss Linton has been the busiest known to the hospital." + +"You, yourself, have kept me rather busy, Mr. King," the girl observed. + +"So I have. I'm wondering what I'm to do when you are at Doctor Burns's +and I at home." + +She smiled. "I shall be there only a week if I keep on gaining as fast +as I am now." + +"A fortnight," interpolated Mrs. Burns, "is the earliest possible date +of your leaving us. And not then unless we think you fit." + +"Did you ever know of such kindness?" Anne Linton asked softly of King. +"To a perfect stranger?" + +He nodded. "Nothing you could tell me of their kindness could surprise +me. About that fortnight--would it be asking a great deal of you to keep +on sending me that daily note?" + +"Isn't there a telephone in your own room at home?" she asked. + +"Yes--how did you know?" + +"I guessed it. Wouldn't a little telephone talk do quite as well--or +better--than a letter?" + +"It would be very nice," admitted King. "But I should hate to do without +the letter. The days are each a month long at present, you know, and +each hour is equal to twenty-four. Make it a letter, too, will you, +please?" + +Miss Linton looked at Mrs. Burns. "Do you think circumstances still +alter cases?" she inquired. + +Her profile, as King caught it again, struck him as a perfect outline. +To think of this girl starting out again, travelling alone, selling +books from door to door! + +"I think you will be quite warranted in being very good to Mr. +King--while his hours drag as he describes," Ellen assented cordially. + +"As soon as I can sit up at any sort of decent angle I can do a lot of +work on paper," King asserted. "Then I'll make the time fly. +Meanwhile--it's all right." + +They talked together for a little, then King sent for Franz, who came +and played superbly, his eager eyes oftenest on Jordan King, like those +of an adoring and highly intelligent dog. Anne watched Franz, and King +watched Anne. Mrs. Burns, seeming to watch nobody, noted with +affectionate and somewhat concerned interest the apparent trend of the +whole situation. She could not help thinking, rather dubiously, of Mrs. +Alexander King, Jordan's mother. + +And, as things happen, it was just as Franz laid down his bow, after a +brilliant rendering of a great concerto, that Mrs. Alexander King came +in. She entered noiselessly, a slender, tall, black-veiled figure, as +scrupulously attired in her conventional deep mourning as if it were not +hot June weather, when some lightening of her sombre garb would have +seemed not only rational but kind to those who must observe her. + +"Oh, mother!" King exclaimed. "In all this heat? I didn't expect you. +I'm afraid you ought not to have come." + +She bent over him. "The heat has nothing to do with my feelings toward +my son. I couldn't neglect you, dear." + +She greeted Ellen cordially, who presented Miss Linton. King lost +nothing of his mother's polite scrutiny of the girl, who bore it without +the slightest sign of recognizing it beyond the lowering of her lashes +after the first long look of the tall lady had continued a trifle beyond +the usual limit. Book agent though she might be, Miss Linton's manner +was faultless, a fact King noted with curious pride in his new +friend--whom, though he himself was meeting her for but the second time, +he somehow wanted to stand any social test which might be put upon her. +And he well knew that his lady mother could apply such tests if anybody +could. + +In his heart he was saying that it seemed hard luck, he must say +good-bye to Anne Linton in that mother's presence. There was small +chance to make it a leave-taking of even ordinary good fellowship +beneath that dignified, quietly appraising eye, to say nothing of +endowing it with a quality which should in some measure compensate for +the fact that it might be a parting for a long time to come. However +much or little the exchange of notes during these last weeks might have +come to mean to Jordan King, aside from the diversion they had offered +to one sorely oppressed of mind and body, he resented being now forced +to those restrained phrases of farewell which he well knew were the only +ones that would commend him to his mother's approval. + +Mrs. Burns and Miss Linton rose to go, summoned by Red Pepper himself, +who was to take them. In the momentary surge of greeting and small talk +which ensued, King surreptitiously beckoned Anne near. He looked up with +the direct gaze of the man who intends to make the most of the little +that Fate sends him. + +"Letters are interesting things, aren't they?" he asked. + +"Very. And when they are written by a man lying on his back, who doesn't +know when he is down, they are stimulating things," she answered; and +there was that in the low tone of her voice and the look of her eyes +which was as if she had pinned a medal for gallantry on the breast of +the black silk robe. + +Mrs. Alexander King looked at her son--and moved nearer. She addressed +Anne. "I am more than glad to see, Miss Linton," said she, "that you are +fully recovered. Please let me wish you much success in your work. I +suppose we shall not see you again after you leave Mrs. Burns." + +"No, Mrs. King," responded Anne's voice composedly. "Thank you for that +very kind wish." + +She turned to the prostrate one once more. She put her hand in his, and +he held it fast for an instant, and, in spite of his mother's gaze, it +was an appreciable instant longer than formality called for. + +"I shall hope to see you again," he said distinctly, and the usual +phrase acquired a meaning it does not always possess. + +Then they were gone, and he had only the remembrance of Anne's parting +look, veiled and maidenly, but the comprehending look of a real friend +none the less. + +"My dear boy, you must be quite worn out with all this company in this +exhausting weather," murmured Mrs. King, laying a cool hand on a +decidedly hot brow. + +The brow moved beneath her hand, on account of a contraction of the +smooth forehead, as if with pain. "I really hadn't noticed the weather, +mother," replied her son's voice with some constraint in it. + +"You must rest now, dear. People who are perfectly well themselves are +often most inconsiderate of an invalid, quite without intention, of +course." + +"If I never receive any less consideration than I have had here, I shall +do very well for the rest of my life." + +"I know; they have all been very kind. But I shall be so relieved when +I can have you at home, where you will not feel obliged to have other +patients on your mind. In your condition it is too much to expect." + +Jordan King was a good son, and he loved his mother deeply. But there +were moments when, as now, if he could have laid a kind but firm hand +upon her handsome, emotional mouth, he would have been delighted to do +so. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +EXPERT DIAGNOSIS + + +"What would you give for a drive with me this morning?" Burns surveyed +his patient, now dressed and downstairs upon a pillared rear porch, +wistfulness in his eyes but determination on his lips. + +"Do you mean it?" + +"Yes. We may as well try what that back will stand. Most of the drive +will be sitting still in front of houses, anyhow, and in your plaster +jacket you're pretty safe from injury." + +"Thank heaven!" murmured Jordan King fervently. + +Two minutes later he was beside Burns in the Doctor's car, staring +eagerly ahead, lifting his hat now and then as some one gave him +interested greeting from passing motor. More than once Burns was obliged +to bring his car to a short standstill, so that some delighted friend +might grasp King's hand and tell him how good it seemed to see him out. +With one and all the young man was very blithe, though he let them do +most of the talking. They all told him heartily that he was looking +wonderfully well, while they ignored with the understanding of the +intelligent certain signs which spoke of physical and mental strain. + +"Your friends," Burns remarked as they went on after one particularly +pleasant encounter, "seem to belong to the class who possess brains. I +wish it were a larger class. Every day I find some patient suffering +from depression caused by fool comments from some well-meaning +acquaintance." + +"I've had a few of those, too," King acknowledged. + +"I'll wager you have. Well, among a certain class of people there seems +to be an idea that you can't show real sympathy without telling the +victim that he's looking very ill, and that you have known several such +cases which didn't recover. I have one little woman on my list who would +have been well long ago if she hadn't had so many loving friends to +impress her with the idea that her case was desperate. I talk Dutch to +such people now and then, when I get the chance, but it doesn't do much +good. Sometimes I get so thundering mad I can't stand it, and then I rip +out something that makes me a lasting enemy." + +"You get some comfort out of the explosion, anyhow," King commented, +with a glance at the strong profile beside him. "Besides, you may do +more good than you know. Anybody who had had a good dressing down from +you once wouldn't be likely to forget it in a hurry." + +Burns laughed at this, as they stopped in front of a house. King had a +half-hour wait while his friend was inside. The car stood in heavy +shade, and he was very comfortable. He took a letter from his pocket as +he sat, a letter which looked as if it had been many times unfolded, and +read it once more, his face very sober as his eyes followed the familiar +lines: + + DEAR MR. KING: + + I was very, very sorry to go away without seeing you to say + good-bye after our interesting correspondence. Mrs. Burns and + I had such a pleasant visit with your mother, in your absence, + that we felt rewarded for our call, and it was good to know + that you could be out, yet of course we were very + disappointed. I do hope that all will go well with you, and + that very rapidly, for I can guess how eager you are to be at + work. + + Of course once I am off on my travels I shall have no time for + letters. No, that isn't quite frank, is it? Well, I will be + truthful and say honestly that I am sure it is not best that I + should keep on writing. I am glad if the letters have, as you + say, helped you through the worst of the siege; they surely + have helped me. But now--our ways part. Sometime I may give + you a hail from somewhere--when I am lonely and longing to + know how you get on. And sometime I may be back at my old + home. But wherever I am I shall never forget you, Jordan King, + for you have put something into my life which was not there + before and I am the better for it. As for you--your life will + not be one whit the less big and efficient for this trying + experience; it will be bigger, I think, and finer. I am glad, + glad I have known you. + + ANNE LINTON. + +For the hundredth time King felt his heart sink as he thought of that +prevented last interview. His mother had prevented it. It was perfectly +true that he was out, and away from home--out in a wheeled chair, which +had been pushed by Franz through a gap in the hedge between the Kings' +lawn and the Wentworths' next door. Just on the other side of that hedge +the chair had paused, where Sally Wentworth, his friend of long +standing, was serving tea to a little group of young people, all +intimates and all delighted to have the invalid once more in their +midst. Under the group of great copper beeches which made of that corner +of the Wentworth lawn a summer drawing room, King had sat in his chair +drinking tea and listening to gay chatter--and wondering why he had not +been able to get Anne Linton on the telephone so far that day. And at +that very time, so he now bitterly reflected, she and Mrs. Burns had +made their call upon him, only to be told by Mrs. King that he was +"out." + +His mother was unquestionably a lady, and she had told the truth; he +could not conceive of her doing otherwise. He knew that she undoubtedly, +quite as Anne had said, had made the call a pleasant one. But she had +known that he was within a stone's throw of the house, and that he would +be bitterly disappointed not to be summoned. She had not mentioned to +him the fact of the call at all until next day--when Anne Linton had +been gone a full two hours upon her train. Then, when he had called up +Mrs. Burns, in a fever of haste to learn what had happened and what +there might yet be a chance of happening, he had discovered that Ellen +herself had tried three times to get him, upon the telephone, and had at +last realized--though this she did not say--that it was not intended +that she should. + +King understood his mother perfectly. She would scorn directly to +deceive him, yet to intrigue quietly but effectively against him in such +a case as this she would consider only her duty. She had seen clearly +his interest in the stranger, unintroduced and unvouched for, taken in +by kind people in an emergency, and though showing unquestionable marks +of breeding, none the less a stranger. She had feared for him, in his +present vulnerable condition; and she had done her part in preventing +that final parting which might have contained elements of danger. That +was all there was to it. + +For the present King was helpless, and there could be no possible use in +reproaching his mother for her action--or lack of action. Once let him +get up on his feet, his own master once more--then it would be of use to +talk. And talk he would some day. Also he would act. Meanwhile-- + +Red Pepper Burns came out of the house and scrutinized his friend and +patient closely as he approached. "Want to go on, or shall I take you +home?" he inquired. + +"Take me on--anywhere--everywhere! Something inside will break loose if +you don't." King spoke with a smothered note of irritation new to him in +Burns's experience. + +"You've about reached the limit, have you?" The question was +straightforward, matter-of-fact in tone, but King knew the sympathy +behind it. + +"I rather have," the young man admitted. "I'm ashamed to own it." + +"You needn't be. It's a wonder you haven't reached it sooner; I should +have. Well, if you stand this drive pretty well to-day you ought to come +on fast. With that back, you may be thankful you're getting off as +easily as you are." + +"I am thankful--everlastingly thankful. It's just--" + +"I know. Blow off some of that steam; it won't hurt you. Here we are on +the straight road. I'll open up and give you a taste of what poor Henley +felt the first time his crippled body and his big, uncrippled spirit +tasted the delight of 'Speed.' Remember?" + +"Indeed I do. Oh, I'm not complaining. You understand that, Red?" + +"Of course I understand--absolutely. And I understand that you need just +what I say--to blow off a lot of steam. Hurt you or not, I'm going to +let loose for a couple of miles and blow it off for you." + +In silence, broken only by the low song of the motor as it voiced its +joy in the widening license to show its power, the two men took the wind +in their faces as the car shot down the road, at the moment a clear +highway for them. King had snatched off his hat, and his dark hair blew +wildly about his forehead, while his eyes watched the way as intently as +if he had been driving himself, though his body hardly tensed, so +complete was his confidence in the steady hands on the wheel. Faster and +faster flew the car, until the speed indicator touched a mark seldom +passed by King himself at his most reckless moments. His lips, set at +first, broke into a smile as the pointing needle circled the dial, and +his eyes, if any could have seen them, would have told the relief there +was for him in escape by flight, though only temporary, from the +grinding pull of monotony and disablement. + +At the turn ahead appeared obstruction, and Burns was obliged to begin +slowing down. When the car was again at its ordinary by no means slow +pace, King spoke: + +"Bless you for a mind reader! That was bully, and blew away a lot of +distemper. If you'll just do it again going back I'll submit to the +afternoon of a clam in a bed of mud." + +"Good. We'll beat that record going back, if we break the speedometer. +Racing with time isn't supposed to be the game for a convalescent, but +I'm inclined to think it's the dose you need, just the same. I expect, +Jord, that the first time you pull on a pair of rubber boots and go to +climbing around a big concrete dam somewhere your heart will break for +joy." + +"My heart will stand anything, so that it's action." + +"Will it? I thought it might be a bit damaged. It's had a good deal of +reaction to stand lately, I'm afraid." + +There was silence for a minute, then King spoke: + +"Red, you're a wizard." + +"Not much of a one. It doesn't take extraordinary powers of penetration +to guess that a flame applied to a bundle of kindling will cause a fire. +And when you keep piling on the fuel something's likely to get burned." + +"Did I pile on the fuel?" + +"You sure did. If there had been gunpowder under the kindling you could +have expected an explosion--and a wreck." + +"There's no wreck." + +"No? I thought there might be--somewhere." + +King spoke quickly. "Do you think I carried it too far?" + +"I think you carried it some distance--for an invalid's diversion." + +The young man flushed hotly. "I was genuinely interested and I saw no +harm. If there's any harm done it's to myself, and I can stand that. I'm +not conceited enough to imagine that a broken-backed cripple could make +any lasting impression." + +Burns turned and surveyed his companion with some amusement. "Do you +consider that a description of yourself?" + +"I certainly do." Jordan King's strong young jaw took on a grim +expression. + +"Know this then"--Burns spoke deliberately--"there's not a sane girl who +liked you well enough before your accident to marry you who wouldn't +marry you now." + +"That's absurd. Women want men, not cripples." + +"You're no cripple. Stop using that term." + +"What else? A man condemned to wear a plaster jacket for at least a +year." King evidently did his best not to speak bitterly. + +"Bosh! Suppose the same thing happened to me. Would you look on me +askance for the rest of my days, no matter what man's job I kept on +tackling? Besides, the plaster jacket's only a precaution. You wouldn't +disintegrate without it." + +King looked at Red Pepper Burns and smiled in spite of himself. "I'm +glad to hear that, I'm sure. As for looking at you askance--you are you, +R.P. Burns." + +"Apply the same logic to yourself. You are you, and will continue to be +you, plus some assets you haven't had occasion to acquire before in the +way of dogged endurance, control of mind, and such-like qualities, bred +of need for them. You will be more to us all than you ever were, and +that's saying something. And the back's going to be a perfectly good +back; give it time. As for--if you don't mind my saying it--that +invalid's diversion, I don't suppose it's hurt you any. What I'm +concerned for is the hurt it may have done somebody else. I don't need +to tell you that it wasn't possible for Ellen and me to have that little +girl on our hearts all that time and not get mightily interested in her. +She's the real thing, too, we're convinced, and we care a good deal what +happens to her next." + +Jordan King drew a deep breath. "So do I." + +Burns gave him a quick look. "That's good. But you let her go away +without making sure of keeping any hold on her. You don't know where she +is now." + +King shot him a return look. "That wasn't my fault. That was hard luck." + +"I don't think much of luck. Get around it." + +"I'll do my best, I promise you. But I wish you'd tell me--" + +"Yes?" + +"--why you should think I had done her any harm. Heaven knows I wouldn't +do that for my right arm!" + +"She didn't make a sign--not one--of any injury, I assure you. She's a +gallant little person, if ever there was one--and a thoroughbred, though +she may be as poor as a church mouse. No, I should never have guessed +it. She went away with all sails set and the flags flying. All I know is +what my wife says." + +"Please tell me." + +"I'm not sure it will be good for you." Burns smiled as he drew up +beside a house. "However--if you will have it--she says Miss Anne Linton +took away with her every one of your numerous letters, notes, and even +calling cards which had been sent with flowers. She also took a halftone +snapshot of you out at the Coldtown dam, cut from a newspaper, +published the Sunday after your accident. The sun was in your eyes and +you were scowling like a fiend; it was the worst picture of you +conceivable." + +"Girls do those things, I suppose," murmured King with a rising colour. + +"Granted. And now and then one does it for a purpose which we won't +consider. But a girl of the type we feel sure Miss Linton to be +carefully destroys all such things from men she doesn't care +for--particularly if she has started on a trip and is travelling light. +Of course she may have fooled us all and be the cleverest little +adventuress ever heard of. But I'd stake a good deal on Ellen's +judgment. Women don't fool women much, you know, whatever they do with +men." + +He disappeared into a small brown house, and King was left once more +with his own thoughts. When Burns came out they drove on again with +little attempt at conversation, for Burns's calls were not far apart. +King presently began to find himself growing weary, and sat very quietly +in his seat during the Doctor's absences, experiencing, as he had done +many times of late, a sense of intense contempt for himself because of +his own physical weakness. In all his sturdy life he had never known +what it was to feel not up to doing whatever there might be to be done. +Fatigue he had known, the healthy and not unpleasant fatigue which +follows vigorous and prolonged labour, but never weakness or pain, +either of body or of mind. Now he was suffering both. + +"Had about enough?" Burns inquired as he returned to the car for the +eighth time. "Shall I take you home?" + +"I'm all right." + +Burns gave him a sharp glance. "To be sure you are. But we'll go home +nevertheless. The rest of my work is at the hospital anyhow." + +As they were approaching the long stretch of straight road to which King +had looked forward an hour ago, but which he was disgusted to find +himself actually rather dreading now, a great closed car of luxurious +type, and bearing upon its top considerable travelling luggage, slowed +down as it neared, and a liveried chauffeur held up a detaining hand. +Burns stopped to answer a series of questions as to the best route +toward a neighbouring city. There were matters of road mending and +detours to be made plain to the inquirers, so the detention occupied a +full five minutes, during which the chauffeur got down and came to +Burns's side with a road map, with which the two wrestled after the +fashion usually made necessary by such aids to travel. + +During this period Jordan King underwent a disturbing experience. +Looking up with his usual keen glance, one trained to observe whatever +might be before it, he took in at a sweep the nature of the party in the +big car. That it was a rich man's car, and that its occupants were those +who naturally belonged in it, there was no question. From the owner +himself, an aristocrat who looked the part, as not all aristocrats do, +to those who were presumably his wife, his son, and daughters, all were +of the same type. Simply dressed as if for a long journey, they yet +diffused that aroma of luxury which cannot be concealed. + +The presumable son, a tall, hawk-nosed young man who sat beside the +chauffeur, turned to speak to those inside, and King's glance followed +his. He thus caught sight of a profile next the open window and close by +him. He stared at it, his heart suddenly standing still. Who was this +girl with the bronze-red hair, the perfect outline of nose and mouth and +chin, the sea-shell colouring? Even as he stared she turned her head, +and her eyes looked straight into his. + +He had seen Miss Anne Linton only twice, and on the two occasions she +had seemed to him like two entirely different girls. But this girl--was +she not that one who had come to visit him in his room at the hospital, +full of returning health and therefore of waxing beauty and vigour? + +For one instant he was sure it was she, no matter how strange it was +that she should be here, in this rich man's car--unless--But he had no +time to think it out before he was overwhelmed by the indubitable +evidence that, whoever this girl was, she did not know him. Her +eyes--apparently the same wonderful eyes which he could now never +forget--looked into his without a sign of recognition, and her +colour--the colour of radiantly blooming youth--did not change +perceptibly under his gaze. And after that one glance, in which she +seemed to survey him closely, after the manner of girls, as if he were +an interesting specimen, her eyes travelled to Red Pepper Burns and +rested lightly on him, as if he, too, were a person of but passing +significance to the motor traveller looking for diversion after many +dusty miles of more or less monotonous sights. + +King continued to gaze at her with a steadiness somewhat indefensible +except as one considers that all motorists, meeting on the highway, are +accustomed to take note of one another as comrades of the road. He was +not conscious that the other young people in the car also regarded him +with eyes of interest, and if he had he would not have realized just +why. His handsome, alert face, its outlines slightly sharpened by his +late experiences, his well-dressed, stalwart figure, carried no hint of +the odious plaster jacket which to his own thinking put him outside the +pale of interest for any one. + +But it could not be Anne Linton; of course it could not! What should a +poor little book agent be doing here in a rich man's car--unless she +were in his employ? And somehow the fact that this girl was not in any +man's employ was established by the manner in which the young man on the +front seat spoke to her, as he now did, plainly heard by King. Though +all he said was some laughing, more or less witty thing about this being +the nineteenth time, by actual count since breakfast, that a question of +roads and routes had arisen, he spoke as to an equal in social status, +and also--this was plainer yet--as to one on whom he had a more than +ordinary claim. And King listened for her answer--surely he would know +her voice if she spoke? One may distrust the evidence of one's eyes when +it comes to a matter of identity, but one's ears are not to be deceived. + +But King's ears, stretched though they might be, metaphorically +speaking, like those of a mule, to catch the sound of that voice, caught +nothing. She replied to the young man on the front seat only by a nod +and a smile. Then, as the chauffeur began to fold up his road map, +thanking Burns for his careful directions, and both cars were on the +point of starting, the object of King's heart-arresting scrutiny looked +at him once again. Her straight gaze, out of such eyes as he had never +seen but on those two occasions, met his without flinching--a long, +steady, level look, which lasted until, under Burns's impatient hand, +the smaller car got under motion and began to move. Even then, though +she had to turn her head a little, she let him hold her gaze--as, of +course, he was nothing loath to do, being intensely and increasingly +stirred by the encounter with its baffling hint of mystery. Indeed, she +let him hold that gaze until it was not possible for her longer to +maintain her share of the exchange without twisting about in the car. As +for King, he did not scruple to twist, as far as his back would let him, +until he had lost those eyes from his view. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +JORDAN IS A MAN + + +When King turned back again to face the front his heart was thumping +prodigiously. Almost he was certain it had been Anne Linton; yet the +explanation--if there were one--was not to be imagined. And if it had +been Anne Linton, why should she have refused to know him? There could +have been little difficulty for her in identifying him, even though she +had seen him last lying flat on his back on a hospital bed. And if there +had been a chance of her not knowing him--there was Red Pepper. + +It was Anne. It could not be Anne. Between these two convictions King's +head was whirling. Whoever it was, she had dared to look straight into +his eyes in broad daylight at a distance of not more than four feet. He +had seen into the very depths of her own bewildering beauty, and the +encounter, always supposing her to be the person of whom he had thought +continuously for four months, was a thing to keep him thinking about her +whether he would or no. + +"Anything wrong?" asked Burns's voice in its coolest tones. "I suspect +I was something of an idiot to give you such a big dose of this at the +first trial." + +"I'm all right, thank you." And King sat up very straight in the car to +prove it. Nevertheless, when he was at home again he was not sorry to be +peremptorily ordered to lie supine on his back for at least three hours. + +It was not long after this that King was able to bring about the thing +he most desired--a talk with Mrs. Burns. She came to see him one July +day, at his request, at an hour when he knew his mother must be away. +With her he went straight to his point; the moment the first greetings +were over and he had been congratulated on his ability to spend a few +hours each day at his desk, he began upon the subject uppermost in his +thoughts. He told her the story of his encounter with the girl in the +car, and asked her if she thought it could have been Miss Linton. + +She looked at him musingly. "Do you prefer to think it was or was not?" +she asked. + +"Are you going to answer accordingly?" + +"Not at all. I was wondering which I wanted to think myself. I wish I +had been with you. I should have known." + +"Would you?" King spoke eagerly. "Would you mind telling me how?" + +"I can't tell you how. Of course I came to know her looks much better +than you; it really isn't strange that after seeing her only twice you +couldn't be sure. I don't think any change of dress or environment could +have hidden her from me. The question is, of course, why--if it was +she--she should have chosen not to seem to know you--unless--" + +"Yes--" + +She looked straight at him. "Unless--she is not the poor girl she seemed +to be. And that explanation doesn't appeal to me. I have known of poor +girls pretending to be rich, but I have never, outside of a sensational +novel, known a rich girl to pretend to be poor, unless for a visit to a +poor quarter for charitable purposes. What possible object could there +be in a girl's going about selling books unless she needed to do it? And +she allowed me--" She stopped, shaking her head. "No, Jordan, that was +not our little friend--or if it was, she was in that car by some curious +chance, not because she belonged there." + +"So you're going on trusting her?" was King's abstract of these +reflections. He scanned her closely. + +She nodded. "Until I have stronger proof to the contrary than your +looking into a pair of beautiful eyes. Have you never observed, my +friend, how many pairs of beautiful eyes there are in the world?" + +He shook his head. "I haven't bothered much about them, except now and +then for a bit of nonsense making." + +"But this pair you, too, are going to go on trusting?" + +"I am. If that girl was Miss Linton she had a reason for not speaking. +If it wasn't"--he drew a deep breath--"well, I don't know exactly how to +explain that!" + +"I do," said Ellen Burns, smiling. "She thought she would never see you +again, and she yielded to a girlish desire to look hard at--a real man." + +It was this speech which, in spite of himself, lingered in King's mind +after she was gone, for the balm there was in it--a balm she had +perfectly understood and meant to put there. Well she guessed what his +disablement meant to him--in spite of the hope of complete recovery--how +little he seemed to himself like the man he was before. + +Certainly it was nothing short of real manhood which prompted the talk +he had with his mother one day not long after this. She brought him a +letter, and she was scrutinizing it closely as she came toward him. He +was fathoms deep in his work and did not observe her until she spoke. + +"Whom can you possibly have as a correspondent in this town, my son?" +she inquired, her eyes upon the postmark, which was that of a small city +a hundred miles away. It was one in which lived an old school friend of +whom she had never spoken, to her recollection, in King's hearing, for +the reason that the family had since suffered deep disgrace in the eyes +of the world, and she had been inexpressibly shocked thereby. + +King looked up. He was always hoping for a word from Anne Linton, and +now, suddenly, it had come, just a week after the encounter with the +girl in the car--which had been going, as it happened, in the opposite +direction from the city of the postmark. He recognized instantly the +handwriting upon the plain, white business envelope--an interesting +handwriting, clear and black, without a single feminine flourish. He +took the letter in his hand and studied it. + +"It is from Miss Linton," he said, "and I am very glad to hear from her. +It is the first time she has written since she went away--over two +months ago." + +He spoke precisely as he would have spoken if it had been a letter from +any friend he had. It was like him to do this, and the surer another man +would have been to try to conceal his interest in the letter the surer +was Jordan King to proclaim it. The very fact that this announcement was +certain to rouse his mother's suspicion that the affair was of moment +to him was enough to make him tell her frankly that she was quite right. + +He laid the letter on the desk before him unopened, and went on with his +work. Mrs. King stood still and looked at him a moment before moving +quietly away, and disturbance was written upon her face. She knew her +son's habit of finishing one thing before he took up another, but she +understood also that he wished to be alone when he should read this +letter. She left the room, but soon afterward she softly passed the open +door, and she saw that the letter lay open before him and that his head +was bent over it. The words before him were these: + + DEAR MR. KING: + + I had not meant to write to you for much longer than this, but + I find myself so anxious to know how you are that I am + yielding to the temptation. I may as well confess that I am + just a little lonely to-night, in spite of having had a pretty + good day with the little book--rather better than usual. + Sometimes I almost wish I hadn't spent that fortnight with + Mrs. Burns, I find myself missing her so. And yet, how can one + be sorry for any happy thing that comes to one? As I look back + on them now, though I am well and strong again, those days of + convalescence in the hospital stand out as among the happiest + in my life. The pleasant people, the flowers, the notes, all + the incidents of that time, not the least among them Franz's + music, stay in my memory like a series of pictures. + + Do you care to tell me how you come on? If so you may write to + me, care of general delivery, in this town, at any time for + the next five days. I shall be so glad to hear. + + ANNE LINTON. + +King looked up as his mother approached. He folded the letter and put +it into his pocket. + +"Mother," he said, "I may as well tell you something. You won't approve +of it, and that is why I must tell you. From the hour I first saw Miss +Linton I've been unable to forget her. I know, by every sign, that she +is all she seems to be. I can't let her go out of my life without an +effort to keep her. I'm going to keep her, if I can." + +Two hours later R.P. Burns, M.D., was summoned to the bedside of Mrs. +Alexander King. He sat down beside the limp form, felt the pulse, laid +his hand upon the shaking shoulder of the prostrate lady, who had gone +down before her son's decision, gentle though his manner with her had +been. She had argued, prayed, entreated, wept, but she had not been able +to shake his purpose. Now she was reaping the consequences of her +agitation. + +"My son, my only boy," she moaned as Burns asked her to tell him her +trouble, "after all these years of his being such a man, to change +suddenly into a willful boy again! It's inconceivable; it's not +possible! Doctor, you must tell him, you must argue with him. He can't +marry this girl, he can't! Why, he doesn't even know the place she comes +from, to say nothing of who she is--her family, her position in life. +She must be a common sort of creature to follow him up so; you know she +must. I can't have it; I will not have it! You must tell him so!" + +Burns considered. There was a curious light in his eyes. "My dear lady," +he said gently at length, "Jordan is a man; you can't control him. He is +a mighty manly man, too--as his frankly telling you his intention +proves. Most sons would have kept their plans to themselves, and simply +have brought the mother home her new daughter some day without any +warning. As for Miss Linton, I assure you she is a lady--as it seems to +me you must have seen for yourself." + +"She is clever; she could act the part of a lady, no doubt," moaned the +one who possessed a clear title to that form of address. "But she might +be anything. Why didn't she tell you something of herself? Jordan could +not say that you knew the least thing about her. People with fine family +records are not so mysterious. There is something wrong about her--I +know it--I know it! Oh, I can't have it so; I can't! You must stop it, +Doctor; you must!" + +"She spent two weeks in our home," Burns said. "During that time there +was no test she did not stand. Come, Mrs. King, you know that it doesn't +take long to discover the flaw in any metal. She rang true at every +touch. She's a girl of education, of refinement--why, Ellen came to feel +plenty of real affection for her before she left us, and you know that +means a good deal. As for the mystery about her, what's that? Most +people talk too much about their affairs. If, as we think, she has been +brought up in circumstances very different from these we find her in, it +isn't strange that she doesn't want to tell us all about the change." + +But his patient continued to moan, and he could give her no consolation. +For a time he sat quietly beside the couch where lay the long and +slender form, and he was thinking things over. The room was veiled in a +half twilight, partly the effect of closing day and partly that of drawn +shades. The deep and sobbing breaths continued until suddenly Burns's +hand was laid firmly upon the hand which clutched a handkerchief wet +with many tears. He spoke now in a new tone, one she had never before +heard from him addressed to herself: + +"This," he said, "isn't worthy of you, my friend." + +It was as if her breath were temporarily suspended while she listened. +People were not accustomed to tell Mrs. Alexander King that her course +of action was unworthy of her. + +"No man or woman has a right to dictate to another what he shall do, +provided the thing contemplated is not an offense against another. You +have no right to set your will against your son's when it is a matter +of his life's happiness." + +She seized on this last phrase. "But that's why I do oppose him. I want +him to be happy--heaven knows I do! He can't be happy--this way." + +"How do you know that? You don't know it. You are just as likely to make +him bitterly unhappy by opposing him as by letting him alone. And I can +tell you one thing surely, Mrs. King: Jordan will do as he wishes in +spite of you, and all you will gain by opposition will be not a gain, +but a sacrifice--of his love." + +She shivered. "How can you think he will be so selfish?" + +Burns had some ado to keep his rising temper down. "Selfish--to marry +the woman he wants instead of the woman you want? That's an old, old +argument of selfish mothers." + +The figure on the couch stiffened. "Doctor Burns! How can you speak so, +when all I ask for is my son's best good?" The words ended in a wail. + +"You think you do, dear lady. What you really want is--your own way." + +Suddenly she sat up, staring at him. His clear gaze met her clouded one, +his sane glance confronted her wild one. She lifted her shaking hand +with a gesture of dismissal. But there was a new experience in store +for Jordan King's mother. + +Burns leaned forward, and took the delicate hand of his hysterical +patient in his own. + +"No, no," he said, smiling, "you don't mean that; you are not quite +yourself. I am Jordan's friend and yours. I have said harsh things to +you; it was the only way. I love your boy as I would a younger brother, +and I want you to keep him because I can understand what the loss of him +would mean to you. But you must know that you can't tie a man's heart to +you with angry commands, nor with tears and reproaches. You can tie +it--tight--by showing sympathy and understanding in this crisis of his +life. Believe me, I know." + +His tone was very winning; his manner--now that he had said his +say--though firm, was gentle, and he held her hand in a way that did +much toward quieting her. Many patients in danger of losing self-control +had known the strengthening, soothing touch of that strong hand. Red +Pepper was not accustomed to misuse this power of his, which came very +near being hypnotic, but neither did he hesitate to use it when the +occasion called as loudly as did this one. + +And presently Mrs. King was lying quietly on her couch again, her eyes +closed, the beating of her agitated pulses slowly quieting. And Burns, +bending close, was saying before he left her: "That's a brave woman. +Ladies are lovely things, but I respect women more. Only a mighty fine +one could be the mother of my friend Jord, and I knew she would meet +this issue like the Spartan she knows how to be." + +If, as he stole away downstairs--leaving his patient in the hands of a +somewhat long-suffering maid--he was saying to himself things of a quite +different sort, let him not be blamed for insincerity. He had at the +last used the one stimulant against which most of us are powerless: the +call to be that which we believe another thinks us. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE SURGICAL FIRING LINE + + +"Len, I've something great to tell you," announced Red Pepper Burns, one +evening in August, as he came out from his office where he had been +seeing a late patient, and joined his wife, who was wandering about her +garden in the twilight. "To-day I've had the compliment of my life. Whom +do you think I'm to operate on day after to-morrow?" + +She looked up at him as he stood, his hands in his pockets, looking down +at her. In her sheer white frock, through which gleamed her neck and +arms, her hands full of pink and white snapdragon, she was worth +consideration. Her eyes searched his face and found there a curious +exultation of a very human sort. "How could I guess? Tell me." + +"Who should you say was the very last man on earth to do me the honour +of trusting me in a serious emergency?" + +She turned away her head, gazing down at a fragrant border of +mignonette, while he watched her, a smile on his lips. She looked up +again. "I can't think, Red. It seems to me everybody trusts you." + +"Not by a long shot, or the rest of the profession would stand idle. But +there's one man who I should have said, to use a time-honoured phrase, +wouldn't let me operate on a sick cat. And he's the man who is going to +put his life in my hands Wednesday morning at ten o'clock. Len, if I am +ever on my mettle to do a perfect job, it'll be then!" + +"Of course. But who--" + +"I should think the name would leap to your lips. Who's mine ancient +enemy, the man who has fought me by politely sneering at me, and +circumventing me when he could, ever since I began practice, and whom +I've fought back in my way? Why, Len--" + +Her dark eyes grew wide. "Red! Not--Doctor Van Horn?" + +"Even so." + +"Oh, Red! That is a compliment--and more than a compliment. But I should +never have thought of him somehow because, I suppose--" + +"Because nobody ever thinks of a doctor's being sick or needing an +operation. But doctors do--sometimes--and usually pretty badly, too, +before they will submit to it. Van Horn's in dreadful shape, and has +been keeping it dark--until it's got the upper hand of him completely. +Mighty plucky the way he's been going on with his work, with trouble +gnawing at his vitals." + +"How did he come to call you?" + +"That's what I'm wondering. But call me he did, yesterday, and I've seen +him twice since. And when I told him what had to be done he took it like +a soldier without wincing. But when he said he wanted me to do the trick +you could have knocked me down with a lead pencil. My word, Len, I have +been doing Van an injustice all these years! The real stuff is in him, +after all, and plenty of it, too." + +"It is he who has done you the injustice," Ellen said with a little lift +of the head. + +"I know I have given you reason to think so--the times I've come home +raving mad at some cut of his. But, Len, that's all past and he wipes it +out by trusting me now. The biggest thing I've had against him was not +his knifing me but his apparent toadying to the rich and influential. +But there's another side to that and I see it now. Some people have to +be coddled, and though it goes against my grain to do it, I don't know +why a man who can be diplomatic and winning, like Van Horn, hasn't his +place just as much as a rough rider like me. Anyhow, the thing now is to +pull him through his operation, and if I can do it--well, Van and I +will be on a new basis, and a mighty comfortable one it will be." + +His voice was eager and his wife understood just how his pulses were +thrilling, as do those of the born surgeon, at the approach of a great +opportunity. + +"I'm very, very glad, dear," Ellen said warmly. "It's a real triumph of +faith over jealousy, and I don't wonder you are proud of such a +commission. I know you will bring him through." + +"If I don't--but that's not to be thought of. It's a case that calls for +extremely delicate surgery and a sure hand, but the ground is plainly +mapped out and only some absolutely unforeseen complication is to be +dreaded. And when it comes to those complications--well, Len, sometimes +I think it must be the good Lord who works a man's brain for him at such +crises, and makes it pretty nearly superhuman. It's hard to account any +other way, sometimes, for the success of the quick decisions you make +under necessity that would take a lot of time to work out if you had the +time. Oh, it's a great game, Len, no doubt of that--when you win. And +when you lose"--he stopped short, staring into the shadows where a row +of dark-leaved laurel bushes shut away the garden in a soft +seclusion--"well, that's another story, a heartbreaking story." + +He was silent for a minute, then, in another tone, he spoke +confidently: "But--this isn't going to be a story of that kind. Van Horn +has a big place in the city and he's going to keep it. And I'm going to +spend the rest of this evening making a bit of a tool I've had in mind +for some time--that there's a remote chance I shall need in this case. +But if that remote chance should come--well, there's nothing like a +state of preparedness, as the military men say." + +"That's why you succeed, Red; you always are prepared." + +"Not always. And it's in the emergency you can't foresee that heaven +comes to the rescue. You can't expect it to come to the rescue when you +might have foreseen. 'Trust the Lord and keep your powder dry' is a +pretty good maxim for the surgical firing line, too--eh?" + +With his arm through his wife's he paced several times up and down the +flowery borders, then went away into the small laboratory and machine +shop where he was accustomed to do much of the work which showed only in +its final results. Through the rest of the hot August evening, his +attire stripped to the lowest terms compatible with possible unexpected +visitors, he laboured with all the enthusiasm characteristic of him at +tasks which to another mind would have been drudgery indeed. + +To him, at about ten o'clock, came his neighbour and friend, Arthur +Chester. Standing with arms on the sill outside of the lighted window, +clad in summer vestments of white and looking as cool and fresh as the +man inside looked hot and dirty, Chester attempted to lure the worker +forth. + +"Win's serving a lot of cold, wet stuff on our porch," he announced. +"Ellen's there, and the Macauleys, and Jord King has just driven up and +stopped for a minute. He's got Aleck with him and he's pleased as Punch +because he's rigged a contrivance so that Aleck can drive himself with +one hand. What do you think of that?" + +"Good work," replied Burns absently after a minute, during which he +tested a steel edge with an experimental finger and shook his head at +it. + +"Did you expect Jord to keep Aleck, when he's got to have another man +besides for the things Aleck can't do now?" + +Burns nodded. "Expect anything--of him." + +"Put down that murderous-looking thing and come along over. Ellen said +you were here, and Win sent word to you not to bother to change your +clothes." + +"Thanks--I won't." + +"Won't bother--or won't come?" + +"Both." + +Chester sighed. "Do you know what you remind me of when you get in this +hole of a workshop? A bull pup with his teeth in something, and only +growls issuing." + +"Better keep away then." + +"I suppose that's a hint--a bull-pup hint." + +Silence from inside, while the worker stirred something boiling over a +flame, poured a dark fluid from one retort into another, dropped in a +drop or two of something from a small vial inflammatorily labelled, and +started an electric motor in a corner. Chester could see the shine of +perspiration on the smooth brow below the coppery hair, and drops +standing like dew on the broad white chest from which the open shirt was +turned widely back. + +"It must be about a hundred and fifty Fahrenheit in there," he +commented. Burns grunted an assent. "It's only eighty-four on our porch, +and growing cooler every minute. The things we have to drink are just +above thirty-two, right off the ice." Chester's words were carefully +chosen. + +"Dangerous extremes. But I wouldn't mind having a pint or two of +something cold. Go, bring it to me." + +"Well, I like that." + +"So'll I, I hope." + +Chester laughed and strolled away. When he returned he carried a big +crystal pitcher filled with a pleasantly frothing home-made amber brew +in which ice tinkled. With him came Jordan King. Chester shoved aside +the screen and pushed the pitcher inside, accompanied by a glass which +Winifred had insisted on sending. + +Burns caught up the pitcher, drank thirstily, drew his arm across his +mouth and grinned through the window, meeting Jordan King's smiling gaze +in return. + +"Company manners don't go when your hands are black, eh?" remarked the +man inside. + +"Mechanics and surgeons seem a good deal alike at times," was the +laughing reply. + +"Can't tell 'em apart. Your lily-handed surgeon is an anomaly. I hear +Aleck came out under his own steam to-night. How does it go?" + +"First rate. It was great fun. He's like a boiling kettle full of steam, +with the lid off just in time." + +"Good. Be on your guard when he's driving, though, for a while. Don't +let him stay at the wheel down Devil's Hill just yet." + +"Why not? He has absolute control the way I've fixed it. You see the +spark and gas are right where--" + +"I don't want you to take one chance in a million on that back of yours +yet. See? Or do I have to drive that order in and spike it down?" + +"He seems to have a lot of conversation in him--for you," observed +Chester to King as the two outside laughed at this explosion from +within. + +"Such as it is," replied King with an audacious wink. "I thought I'd got +about through taking orders." + +"I'll give you both two minutes to clear out," came from inside the +window as Burns caught up a piece of steel and began narrowly to examine +it. Over it he looked at Jordan King, and the two exchanged a glance +which spoke of complete understanding. + +"Come again, boy," Burns said with a sudden flashing smile at his +friend. + +"I will--day after to-morrow in the afternoon," King returned, and his +eyes held Burns's. + +"What? Do you know?" + +King nodded, with a look of pride. "You bet I do." + +"Who told you?" + +"Himself." + +"Didn't know you knew him well enough for that." + +"Oh, yes, through mother; they're old friends. She sent me to see him +for her." + +"I see. Well, wish me luck!" + +"I wish you--your own skill at its highest power," said Jordan King +fervently. + +"Thanks, youngster," was Burns's answer, and this time there was no +smile on the face which he lifted again for an instant from above the +tiny piece of steel which held in it such potentialities--in his hands. + +"You seem to have got farther in under his skin than the rest of us," +observed Chester to King as they walked slowly away. There was a touch +of unconscious jealousy in his tone. He had known R.P. Burns a long +while before Jordan King had reached man's estate. "I never knew him to +say a word about a coming operation before." + +"He didn't say it now; I happened to know. Come out and see the rigging +we've put on the car so Aleck can work everything with one hand and two +feet." + +"And a few brains, I should say," Chester supplemented. + + * * * * * + +Though Burns had plenty of other work to keep him busy during the +interval before he should lay hands upon Doctor Van Horn, his mind was +seldom off his coming task. In spite of all that Ellen knew of the past +antagonism between the two men she was in possession of but +comparatively few of the facts. Except where his fiery temper had +entirely overcome him Burns had been silent concerning the many causes +he had had to dislike and distrust the older man. + +As what is called "a fashionable physician," having for his patients +few outside of the wealthy class, Dr. James Van Horn had occupied a +field of practice entirely different from that of R.P. Burns. Though +Burns numbered on his list many of the city's best known and most +prosperous citizens, he held them by virtue of a manner of address and a +system of treatment differing in no wise from that which he employed +upon the poorest and humblest who came to him. If people liked him it +was for no blandishments of his, only for his sturdy manliness, his +absolute honesty, and a certain not unattractive bluntness of speech +whose humour often atoned for its thrust. + +As for his skill, there was no question that it ranked higher than that +of his special rival. As for his success, it had steadily increased. +And, as all who knew him could testify, when it came to that "last +ditch" in which lay a human being fighting for his life, Burns's +reputation for standing by, sleeves rolled up and body stiff with +resistance of the threatening evil, was such that there was no man to +compete with him. + +It was inevitable that in a city of the moderate size of that in which +these two men practised there should arise situations which sometimes +brought about a clash between them. The patient of one, having arrived +at serious straits, often called for a consultation with the other. The +very professional bearing and methods of the two were so different, +strive though they might to adapt themselves to each other at least in +the presence of the patient, that trouble usually began at once, veiled +though it might be under the stringencies of professional etiquette. +Later, when it came to matters of life and death, these men were sure to +disagree radically. Van Horn, dignified of presence, polished of speech, +was apt to impress the patient's family with his wisdom, his restraint, +his modestly assured sense of the fitness of his own methods to the +needs of the case; while Burns, burning with indignation over some +breach of faith occasioned by his senior's orders in his absence, or +other indignity, flaming still more hotly over being forced into a +course which he believed to be against the patient's interest, was +likely to blurt out some rough speech at a moment when silence, as far +as his own interests were concerned, would have been more discreet--and +then would come rupture. + +Usually those most concerned never guessed at the hidden fires, because +even Burns, under bonds to his wife to restrain himself at moments of +danger, was nearly always able to get away from such scenes without open +outbreak. But more than once a situation had developed which could be +handled only by the withdrawal of one or the other physician from the +case--and then, whether he went or stayed, Burns could seldom win +through without showing what he felt. + +Now, however, he was feeling as he had never dreamed he could feel +toward James Van Horn. The way in which the man was facing the present +crisis in his life called for Burns's honest and ungrudging admiration. +With that same cool and unflurried bearing with which Van Horn was +accustomed to hold his own in a consultation was he now awaiting the +uncertain issue of his determination to end, in one way or the other, +the disability under which he was suffering. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE ONLY SAFE PLACE + + +When Red Pepper Burns visited James Van Horn, at the hospital, on the +evening before the operation, he found him lying quietly in bed, ready +for the night--and the morning. He looked up and smiled the same +slightly frosty smile Burns knew so well, but which he now interpreted +differently. As he sat down by the bedside the younger man's heart was +unbelievably warm. + +He looked straight, with his powerful hazel eyes slightly veiled by a +contraction of the eyelids, into the steady gray eyes of his +patient--his patient--he could not believe it yet. He laid exploring +fingers upon the pulse of the hand he had just grasped. + +"If they were all like you," he said gently, "we should have better +chances for doing our best. How do you manage it, Doctor?" + +"Temperament, I suppose," returned the other lightly. "Or"--and now he +spoke less lightly--"belief--or lack of it. If we get through--very +well; I shall go on with my work. If we don't get through--that ends +it. I have no belief in any hereafter, as you may know. A few years more +or less--what does it matter?" + +Burns studied the finely chiselled face in silence for a minute, then he +spoke slowly: "It matters this much--to me. If by a chance, a slip, a +lack of skill, I should put an end to a life which would never live +again, I could not bear it." + +Van Horn smiled--and somehow the smile was not frosty at all. "I am +trusting you. Your hand won't slip; there will be no lack of skill. If +you don't pull me through, it will be because destiny is too much for +us. To be honest, I don't care how it comes out. And yet, that's not +quite true either. I do care; only I want to be entirely well again. I +can't go on as I have gone." + +"You shall not. We're going to win; I'm confident of it. Only--Doctor, +if the unforeseen should happen I don't want you to go out of this life +believing there's no other. Listen." He pulled out a notebook and +searching, found a small newspaper clipping. "A big New York paper the +other day printed this headline: '_Fell Eight Stories to Death_.' A +smaller city paper copied it with this ironical comment: '_Headlines +cannot be too complete. But what a great story it would have been if he +had fallen eight stories to life!_' And then one of the biggest and +most influential and respected newspapers in the world copied both +headlines and comment and gave the whole thing a fresh title: '_Falls to +Life--Immortal_.' Doctor--you can't afford to lie to-night where you +do--and take chances on that last thing's not being true. The greatest +minds the world knows believe it is true." + +A silence fell. Then Van Horn spoke: "Burns, do you think it's wise to +turn a patient's thoughts into this channel on the eve of a crisis?" + +Burns regarded him closely. "Can you tell me, Doctor," he asked, "that +your thoughts weren't already in that channel?" + +"Suppose they were. And suppose I even admitted the possibility that you +were right--which, mind you, I don't--what use is it to argue the +question at this late hour?" + +"Because the hour is not too late. If you want to sleep quietly to-night +and wake fit for what's coming, put yourself in the hands of the Maker +of heaven and earth before you sleep. Then, whether there's a hereafter +or not won't matter for you; you'll leave that to Him. But you'll be in +His hands--and that's the only place it's safe to be." + +"Suppose I told you I didn't believe in any such Being." + +"I should tell you you knew better--and knew it with every fibre of +you." + +The two pairs of eyes steadily regarded each other. In Burns's flamed +sincerity and conviction. In Van Horn's grew a curious sort of +suffering. He moved restlessly on his pillow. + +"If I had known you were a fanatic as well as a fighter I might have +hesitated to call you, even though I believe in you as a surgeon," he +said somewhat huskily. + +"It's surgery you're getting from me to-night, but I cut to cure. A mind +at rest will help you through to-morrow." + +"Why should you think my mind isn't at rest? You commended me for my +quiet mind when you came in." + +"For your cool control. But your unhappy spirit looked out of your eyes +at me, and I've spoken to that. I couldn't keep silence. Forgive me, +Doctor; I'm a blunt fellow, as you have reason to know. I haven't liked +you, and you haven't liked me. We've fought each other all along the +line. But your calling me now has touched me very much, and I find +myself caring tremendously to give you the best I have. And not only the +best my hands have to give you, but the best of my brain and heart. And +that belief in the Almighty and His power to rule this world and other +worlds is the best I have. I'd like to give it to you." + +He rose, his big figure towering like a mountain of strength above the +slender form in the bed. + +Van Horn stretched up his hand to say good-night. "I know you thought it +right to say this to me, Burns," he said, "and I have reason to know +that when you think a thing is right you don't hesitate to do it. I like +your frankness--better than I seem to. I trust you none the less for +this talk; perhaps more. Do your best by me in the morning, and whatever +happens, your conscience will be free." + +Burns's two sinewy hands clasped the thin but still firm one of Van +Horn. "As I said just now, I've never wanted more to do my best than for +you," came very gently from his lips. "And I can tell you for your +comfort that the more anxious I am to do good work the surer I am to do +it. I don't know why it should be so; I've heard plenty of men say it +worked just the other way with them. Yes, I do know why. I think I'll +tell you the explanation. The more anxious I am the harder I pray to my +God to make me fit. And when I go from my knees to the operating-room I +feel armed to the teeth." + +He smiled, a brilliant, heart-warming smile, and suddenly he looked, to +the man on the bed who gazed at him, more like a conqueror than any one +he had ever seen. And all at once James Van Horn understood why, with +all his faults of temper and speech, his patients loved and clung to Red +Pepper Burns; and why he, Van Horn himself, had not been able to defeat +Burns as a rival. There was something about the man which spoke of +power, and at this moment it seemed clear, even to the skeptic, that it +was not wholly human power. + +Burns bent over the bed. "Good-night, Doctor," he said softly, almost as +he might have spoken to a child. Then, quite as he might have spoken to +a child, he added: "Say a bit of a prayer before you go to sleep. It +won't hurt you, and--who knows?--even unbelieving, you may get an +answer." + +Van Horn smiled up at him wanly. "Good-night, Doctor," he replied. +"Thank you for coming in--whether I sleep the better or the worse for +it." + + * * * * * + +If there were anything of the fanatic about Redfield Pepper Burns--and +the term was one which no human being but Van Horn had ever applied to +him--it was the fighting, not the fasting, side of his character which +showed uppermost at ten next morning. He came out of his hospital +dressing-room with that look of dogged determination written upon brow +and mouth which his associates knew well, and they had never seen it +written larger. From Doctor Buller, who usually gave the anesthetics in +Burns's cases, and from Miss Mathewson, who almost invariably worked +upon the opposite side of the operating table, to the newest nurse whose +only mission was to be at hand for observation, the staff more or less +acutely sensed the situation. Not one of those who had been for any +length of time in the service but understood that it was an unusual +situation. + +That James Van Horn and R.P. Burns had long been conscious or +unconscious rivals was known to everybody. Van Horn was not popular with +the hospital staff, while Burns might have ordered them all to almost +any deed of valour and have been loyally obeyed. But Van Horn's standing +in the city was well understood; he was admired and respected as the +most imposing and influential figure in the medical profession there +represented. He held many posts of distinction, not only in the city, +but in the state, and his name at the head of an article in any +professional magazine carried weight and authority. And that he should +have chosen Burns, rather than have sent abroad for any more famous +surgeon, was to be considered an extraordinary honour indicative of a +confidence not to have been expected. + +Altogether, there was more than ordinary tension observable in the +operating-room just before the appointed hour. A number of the city's +surgeons were present--Grayson, Fields, Lenhart, Stevenson--men +accustomed to see Burns at work and to recognize his ability as +uncommon. Not that they often admitted this to themselves or to one +another, but the fact remains that they understood precisely why Van +Horn, if he chose a local man at all--which of itself had surprised them +very much--had selected Burns. Not one of them, no matter how personally +he felt antagonistic to this most constantly employed member of the +profession, but would have felt safer in his hands in such a crisis than +in those of any of his associates. + +Burns held a brief conference with Miss Mathewson, who having been with +him in his office and his operative work for the entire twelve years of +his practice, was herself all but a surgeon and suited him better than +any man, with her deft fingers and sure response to his slightest +indication of intention. The others found themselves watching the two as +they came forward, cool, steady, ready for the perfect team work they +had so long played. If both hearts were beating a degree faster than +usual there was nothing to show it. Nobody knew what had passed between +the two. If they had known they might have understood why they worked so +perfectly together. + +"You're going to give me your best to-day, Amy, eh?" + +"You know that, Doctor Burns." + +"Of course I know it. But I want a little better than your best. This is +one of the cases where every second is going to count. We have to make +all the speed that's in us without a slip. I can trust you. I didn't +tell you before because I didn't want you thinking about it. But I tell +you now because I've got to have the speed. All right; that's all." + +He gave her one quick smile, then his face was set and stern again, as +always at this moment, for it was the moment when he caught sight of his +patient, quietly asleep, being brought to him. And it was the moment +when one swift echo of the prayer he had already made upon his knees +leaped through his mind--to be gone again as lightning flashes through a +midnight sky. After that there was to be no more prayer, only action. + + * * * * * + +The watching surgeons unconsciously held their breath as the operation +began. For the patient on the table was James Van Horn, and the man who +had taken Van Horn's life into his hands was not a great surgeon from +New York or Boston, as was to have been anticipated, but their everyday +colleague Burns. And at that moment not one of them envied him his +chance. + +Ellen had seldom waited more anxiously for the word her husband always +sent her at such times. He fully recognized that the silent partner in +crises like these suffered a very real and trying suspense, the greater +that there was nothing she could do for him except to send him to his +work heartened by the thought of her and of her belief in him. + +It was longer than usual, on this more than ordinarily fateful morning, +before Ellen received the first word from the hospital. When it came it +was from an attendant and it was not reassuring: + +"Doctor Burns wishes me to tell you that the patient has come through +the operation, but is in a critical condition. He will not leave him at +present." + +This meant more hours of waiting, during which Ellen could set her mind +and hand to nothing which was not purely mechanical. She was realizing +to the full that it was the unknown factor of which Burns had often +spoken, the unforeseen contingency, which might upset all the +calculations and efforts of science and skill. Well she knew that, +though her husband's reputation was an assured one, it might suffer +somewhat from the loss of this prominent case. Ellen felt certain that +this last consideration was one to weigh little with Burns himself +compared with his personal and bitter regret over an unsuccessful effort +to save a life. But it seemed to her that she cared from every point of +view, and to her the time of waiting was especially hard to bear. + +There was one relief in the situation--never had she had her vigils +shared as Jordan King was sharing this one. As the hours went by, both +by messages over the telephone and by more than one hurried drive out to +see Ellen in person, did he let her know that his concern for Burns's +victory was only second to her own. + +"He's got to save him!" was his declaration, standing in her doorway, +late in the evening, hat in hand, bright dark eyes on Ellen's. "And the +way he's sticking by, I'm confident he will. That bull-dog grip of his +we know so well would pull a ton of lead out of a quicksand. He won't +give up while there's a breath stirring, and even if it stops he'll +start it again--with his will!" + +"You are a loyal friend." Ellen's smile rewarded him for this blindly +assured speech, well as she knew how shaky was the foundation on which +he might be standing. "But the last message he sent was only that no +ground had been lost." + +"Well, that's a good deal after ten hours." He looked at his watch. +"Keep a brave heart, Mrs. Burns. I'm going to the hospital now to see if +I can get just a glimpse of our man before we settle down for the night. +And I want to arrange with Miss Dwight--she was my nurse--to let me know +any news at any hour in the night." + +It was at three in the morning that King called her to say with a ring +of joy in his voice: "There's a bit of a gain, Mrs. Burns. It looks +brighter." + +It was at eight, five hours later, that Burns himself spoke to her. His +voice betrayed tension in spite of its steadiness. "We're holding hard, +Len; that's about all I can say." + +"Dear--are you getting any rest?" + +"Don't want any; I'm all right. I'll not be home till we're out of this, +you know. Good-bye, my girl." And he was gone, back to the bedside. She +knew, without being told, that he had hardly left it. + +Thirty-six hours had gone by, and Ellen and Jordan King had had many +messages from the hospital before the one came which eased their anxious +minds: "Out of immediate danger." It was almost another thirty-six +before Burns came home. + +She had never seen him look more radiantly happy, though the shadows +under his eyes were heavy, and there were lines of fatigue about his +mouth. Although she had been watching for him he took her by surprise +at last, coming upon her in the early morning just as she was descending +the stairs. With both arms around her, as she stood on the bottom stair, +he looked into her eyes. + +"The game's worth the candle, Len," he said. + +"Even though you've been burning the candle at both ends, dear? Yes, I +know it is. I'm so glad--so glad!" + +"We're sworn friends, Van and I. Can you believe it? Len, he's simply +the finest ever." + +She smiled at him. "I'm sure you think so; it's just what you would +think, my generous boy." + +"I'll prove it to you by and by, when I've had a wink of sleep. A bath, +breakfast, and two hours of rest--then I'll be in service again. Van's +resting comfortably, practically out of danger, and--Len, his eyes +remind me of a sick child's who has waked out of a delirium to find his +mother by his side." + +"Is that the way his eyes look when they meet yours?" + +He nodded. "Of course. That's how I know." + +"O Red," she said softly--"to think of the eyes that look at you like +that!" + +"They don't all," he answered as the two went up the stairs side by +side. "But Van--well, he's been through the deep waters, and he's +found--a footing on rock where he expected shifting sands. Ah, there's +my boy! Give him to me quick!" + +The Little-Un, surging plumply out of the nursery, tumbled into his +father's arms, and submitted, shouting with glee, to the sort of +huggings, kissings, and general inspection to which he was happily +accustomed when Burns came home after a longer absence than usual. + +Just before he went back to the hospital, refreshed by an hour's longer +sleep than he had meant to take, because Ellen would not wake him +sooner, Burns opened the pile of mail which had accumulated during his +absence. He sat on the arm of the blue couch, tossing the letters one by +one upon the table behind it, in two piles, one for his personal +consideration, the other for Miss Mathewson's answering. Ellen, happily +relaxing in a corner of the couch, her eyes watching the letter opening, +saw her husband's eyes widen as he stooped to pick up a small blue paper +which had fallen from the missive he had just slitted. As he unfolded +the blue slip and glanced at it, an astonished whistle leaped to his +lips. + +"Well, by the powers--what's this?" he murmured. "A New York draft for a +thousand dollars, inclosed in a letter which says nothing except a +typewritten '_From One of the most grateful of all grateful patients_.' +Len, what do you think of that? Who on earth sent it? I haven't had a +rich patient who hasn't paid his bill, or who won't pay it in due form +when he gets around to it. And the poor ones don't send checks of this +size." + +"I can't imagine," she said, studying the few words on the otherwise +blank sheet, and the postmark on the typewritten envelope, which showed +the letter also to have come from New York. "You haven't had a patient +lately who was travelling--a hotel case, or anything of that sort?" + +He shook his head. "None that didn't pay before he left--and none that +seemed particularly grateful anyhow. Well, I must be off. The thousand's +all right, wherever it came from, eh? And I want to get back to Van. I'd +put that draft in the fire rather than go back to find the slightest +slip in his case. I think, if I should, I'd lose my nerve at last." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE TRUTH ABOUT SUSQUEHANNA + + +Jordan King, directing his car with necessary caution through the +traffic of a small but crowded city, two hundred miles from home, +suddenly threw out his clutch and jammed his brakes into urgent use. +Beside him Aleck, flinging out a hasty arm to warn drivers pressing +closely behind, gazed at his employer in wonder. There was absolutely +nothing to stop them, and an autocratic crossing policeman just ahead +was impatiently waving them forward. + +But King, his eyes apparently following something or some one in the +throng, which had just negotiated the crossing of the street at right +angles to his own direction, spoke hurriedly: "Turn to the right here, +Aleck, and wait for me at the first spot down that street where they'll +let you stop." + +He was out of the car and off at a dangerous slant through the +procession of moving vehicles, dodging past great trucks and slipping by +the noses of touring cars and coupes with apparent recklessness of +consequences. + +Aleck, sliding into the driver's seat and forced to lose sight of +King's tall figure because of the urgency of the crowding mass behind, +was moved to curious speculation. As he turned the designated corner, he +was saying to himself with a chuckle: "He always was quick on the +trigger, but I'll be darned if that wasn't about the hastiest move I +ever saw him make. What's he after, anyhow, in this town where he just +told me he didn't know a soul? Well, it's some wait for me, I'll bet." + +If he could have seen his master as that young man plunged along through +the crowd Aleck would have found plenty to interest him. King was doing +his best to pursue and catch up with a figure which he now and again +lost sight of in the throng, so that he slowed his pace lest he go by it +unawares. The fear that he might thus miss and lose it sharpened his +gaze and gave to his face an intent look, so that many people stared at +him as he passed them, wondering what the comely, dark-eyed young man +was after that he was rushing at such a pace. + +There came a moment when King paused, uncertain, his heart standing +still with the certainty that he was off the track and that his quarry +had unconsciously doubled and eluded him. An instant later he drew a +quick breath of relief, his gaze following a slender black figure as it +mounted the steps of an old church which stood, dingy but still +dignified, close by the highway, its open doors indicating that it had +remained in this downtown district for a purpose. King sprang up the +steps, then paused in the great doorway, beyond which the darkness and +quiet of an empty interior silently invited passers-by to rest and +reflect. At that moment a deep organ note sounded far away upon the +stillness, and King took a step inside, looking cautiously about him. +The figure he pursued had vanished, and after a moment more he crossed +the vestibule and stood, hat in hand, gazing into the dim depths beyond. + +For a little, coming as he had from the strong light of the September +afternoon, he could see absolutely nothing; but as his vision cleared he +was able to make out a small group of people far toward the front of the +spacious interior, and the form of the organist himself before his +manuals low at the right of the choir. But he had to look for some time +before he could descry at the farthermost side of the church a solitary +head bent upon the rail before it. Toward this point the young man +slowly made his way, his heart hammering a most unwonted tattoo within +his broad breast. + +Several pews behind and to one side of the kneeling figure he took his +place, his gaze fastened upon it. He looked his fill, secure in his own +position, which was in the shadow of a great stone pillar, where the +dim light from the sombre-toned windows did not touch him. And, as he +looked, the conviction he had had since his first meeting with this girl +deepened and strengthened into resolution. He would not lose her again, +no matter what it might cost to hold her. He would not believe a man +could be mistaken in that face, in that exquisite and arresting +personality. There was not such another in the whole wide world. + +Suddenly she turned, and evidently she saw that some one was near her, +though he knew it was not possible that she had recognized him. She sat +quite still for another five minutes, then rose very quietly, gathering +up the remembered black handbag, and moved like a young nun into the +aisle, head downbent. King slipped out of his pew, made a quick circuit +around the pillar, and met her squarely as she came toward him. + +He stood still in her path, and she, looking partially up to pass him +with that complete ignoring of his presence which young women of +breeding employ when strangers threaten to take notice, heard his low +voice: "Please don't run away--from your friend!" + +"Oh--Mr. King!" Her eyes, startled, met his indeed, and into her face, +as she spoke his name, poured a flood of beautiful colour, at sight of +which King all but lost his head. + +He managed, however, to retain sufficient sanity to grasp her hand after +the fashion approved as the proper sign of cordiality in meeting a +valued acquaintance, and to say, in an outwardly restrained manner: +"Won't you sit down again here? We can talk so much better than +outside--and I must talk with you. You have no idea how hard I have +tried to find you." + +She seemed to hesitate for an instant, but ended by slipping into the +pew by the pillar where King had been sitting, and to which he pointed +her, as the most sheltered spot at hand, where the group of people at +the front of the church were hidden from view, and only the now low and +throbbing notes of the organ could remind the pair that they were not +absolutely alone. + +"This is wonderful--for me," King began, in the hushed tone befitting +such a place--and the tone which suited his feelings as well. "I have +thought of you a million times in these months and longed to know just +how you were looking. Now that I see for myself my mind is a bit +easier--and yet--I'm somehow more anxious about you than ever." + +"There's no reason why you should be anxious about me, Mr. King," she +answered, her eyes releasing themselves from his in spite of his effort +to hold them. "I'm doing very well, and--quite enjoying my work. How +about yourself? I hardly need to ask." + +"Oh, I'm coming on finely, thank you. I've plunged into my work with all +the zest I ever had. Only one thing has bothered me: I seemed unable to +get out of the habit of watching the mails. And they have been mighty +disappointing." + +"You surely couldn't expect," she said, smiling a little, "that once you +were well again you should be pampered with frequent letters." + +"I certainly haven't been pampered. One letter in all this time--" + +"Book agents haven't much time for writing letters. And surely engineers +must be busy people." + +He was silent for a minute, studying her. She seemed, in spite of her +youth and beauty, wonderfully self-reliant. Again, as in the room at the +hospital, her quiet poise of manner struck him. And though she was once +more dressed in the plainest and least costly of attire--as well as he +could judge--he knew that he should be entirely willing to take her +anywhere where he was known, with no mental apologies for her +appearance. This thought immediately put another into his mind, on which +he lost no time in acting. + +"This is a great piece of luck," said he, and went on hurriedly, trying +to use diplomacy, which always came hard with him: "I don't want it to +slip away too soon. Why couldn't we spend the rest of the day together? +I'm just on my way back home from a piece of work I've been +superintending outside this city. I've plenty of time ahead of me, and +I'm sure the book business can't be so pressing that you couldn't take a +few hours off. If you'll venture to trust yourself to me we'll go off +into the country somewhere, and have dinner at some pleasant place. Then +we can talk things over--all sorts of things," he added quickly, lest +this seem too pointed. "Won't you--please?" + +She considered an instant, then said frankly: "Of course that would be +delightful, and I can't think of a real reason why I shouldn't do it. +What time is it, please?" + +"Only three o'clock. We'll have time for a splendid drive and I'll +promise to get you back at any hour you say--after dinner." + +"It must be early." + +"It shall be. Well, then--will you wait in the vestibule out here two +minutes, please? I'll have the car at the door." + +Thus it happened that Aleck, four blocks away, having just comfortably +settled to the reading of a popular magazine on mechanics, found himself +summarily ejected from his seat, and sent off upon his own resources +for a number of hours. + +"Take care of yourself, Al, and have a good time out of it if you can," +urged his master, and Aleck observed that King's eyes were very bright +and his manner indicative of some fresh mental stimulus received during +the brief time of his absence. "Have the best sort of a dinner wherever +you like." + +"All right, Mr. King," Aleck responded. "I hope you're going to have a +good time yourself," he added, "after all the work you've done to-day. I +was some anxious for fear you'd do too much." + +"No chance, Aleck, with Doctor Burns's orders what they are. And I +didn't do a thing but stand around and talk with the men. I'm feeling +fit as a fiddle now." And King drove off in haste. + +Back at the church he watched with intense satisfaction Miss Anne +Linton's descent of the dusty steps. The September sunshine was +hazily bright, the air was warmly caressing, and there were several +hours ahead containing such an opportunity as he had not yet had to +try at finding out the things he had wanted to know. Not this girl's +circumstances--though he should be interested in that topic--not any +affairs of hers which she should not choose to tell him; but the future +relationship between herself and him--this was what he must establish +upon some sort of a definite basis, if it were possible. + +Out through the crowded streets into the suburbs, on beyond these to the +open country, the car took its way with as much haste as was compatible +with necessary caution. Once on the open road, however, and well away, +King paid small attention to covering distance. Indeed, when they had +reached a certain wooded district, picturesque after the fashion of the +semi-mountainous country of that part of the state, he let his car idle +after a fashion most unaccustomed with him, who was usually principally +concerned with getting from one place to another with the least possible +waste of time. + +And now he and Anne Linton were talking as they never had had the chance +to talk before, and they were exploring each other's minds with the zest +of those who have many tastes in common. King was confirming that of +which he had been convinced by her letters, that she was thoroughly +educated, and that she had read and thought along lines which had +intensely interested him ever since he had reached the thinking age. To +his delight he found that she could hold her own in an argument with as +close reasoning, as logical deduction, as keen interpretation, as any +young man he knew. And with it all she showed a certain quality of +appreciation of his own side of the question which especially pleased +him, because it proved that she possessed that most desirable power, +rare among those of her sex as he knew them--the ability to hold herself +free from undue bias. + +Yet she proved herself a very girl none the less by suddenly crying out +at sight of certain tall masses of shell-pink flowers growing by the +roadside in a shady nook, and by insisting on getting out to pick them +for herself. + +"It's so much more fun," she asserted, "to choose one's own than to +watch a man picking all the poorest blossoms and leaving the very best." + +"Is that what we do?" King asked, his eyes feasting upon the sight of +her as she filled her arms with the gay masses, her face eager with her +pleasure in them. + +"Yes, indeed. Or else you get out a jackknife and hack off great +handfuls of them at once, and bring them back all bleeding from your +ruthless attack." + +"I see. And you gather them delicately, so they don't mind, I suppose. +Yet--I was given to understand that 'Susquehanna' died first. I've +always wondered what you did to her. I'd banked on her as the huskiest +of the lot." + +She flashed a quick look at him, compounded of surprise, mirth, and +something else whose nature he could not guess. "'Susquehanna' was +certainly a wonderful rose," she admitted. + +"Yet only next morning she was sadly drooping. I know, because I +received a report of her. And I lost my wager." + +"You should have known better," she said demurely, her head bent over +her armful of flowers, "than to make a wager on the life of a rose sent +to a girl who was just coming back to life herself." + +"You weren't so gentle with 'Susquehanna,' then, I take it, as you are +with those wild things you have there." + +"I was not gentle with her at all." Anne lifted her head with a +mischievously merry look. "If you must know--I kissed her--hard!" + +"Ah!" Jordan King sat back, laughing, with suddenly rising colour. "I +thought as much. But I suppose I'm to take it that you did it solely +because she was 'Susquehanna'--not because--" + +"Certainly because she was her lovely self, cool and sweet and a +glorious colour, and she reminded me--of other roses I had known. +Flowers to a convalescent are only just a little less reviving than +food. 'Susquehanna' cheered me on toward victory." + +"Then she died happy, I'm sure." + +He would have enjoyed keeping it up with nonsense of this pleasurable +sort, but as soon as Anne was back in the car she somehow turned him +aside upon quite different ground, just how he could not tell. He found +himself led on to talk about his work, and he could not discover in her +questioning a trace of anything but genuine interest. No man, however +modest about himself, finds it altogether distressing to have to tell a +charming girl some of his more exciting experiences. In the days of his +early apprenticeship King had spent many months with a contracting +engineer of reputation, who was executing a notable piece of work in a +wild and even dangerous country, and the young man's memory was full of +adventures connected with that period. In contrast with his present +work, which was of a much more prosaic sort, it formed a chapter in his +history to which it stirred him even yet to turn back, and at Anne's +request he was soon launched upon it. + +So the afternoon passed amidst the sights and sounds of the September +country. And now and again they stopped to look at some fine view from a +commanding height, or flew gayly down some inviting stretch of smooth +road. By and by they were at an old inn, well up on the top of the +world, which King had had in mind from the start, and to which he had +taken time, an hour before, to telephone and order things he had hoped +she would like. When the two sat down at a table in a quiet corner +there were flowers and shining silver upon a snowy cloth, and the food +which soon arrived was deliciously cooked, sustaining the reputation the +place had among motorists. And in the very way in which Anne Linton +filled her position opposite Jordan King was further proof that, in +spite of all evidence to the contrary, she belonged to his class. + +Their table was lighted with shaded candles, and in the soft glow Anne's +face had become startlingly lovely. She had tucked a handful of the +shell-pink wild flowers into the girdle of her black dress, and their +hue was reflected in her cheeks, glowing from the afternoon's drive in +the sun. As King talked and laughed, his eyes seldom off her face, he +felt the enchantment of her presence grow upon him with every minute +that went by. + +Suddenly he blurted out a question which had been in his mind all day. +"I had a curious experience a while back," he said, "when I first got +out into the world. I was in Doctor Burns's car, and we met some people +in a limousine, touring. They stopped to ask about the road, and there +was a girl in the car who looked like you. But--she didn't recognize me +by the slightest sign, so I knew of course it couldn't be you." + +He looked straight at Anne as he spoke, and saw her lower her eyes for a +moment with an odd little smile on her lips. She did not long evade his +gaze, however, but gave him back his look unflinchingly. + +"It was I," she said. "But I'm not going to tell you how I came to be +there, nor why I didn't bow to you. All I want to say is that there was +a reason for it all, and if I could tell you, you would understand." + +Well, he could not look into her face and not trust her in whatever she +might elect to do, and he said something to that effect. Whereupon she +smiled and thanked him, and said she was sorry to be so mysterious. He +recalled with a fresh thrill how she had looked at him at that strange +meeting, for now that he knew that it was surely she, the great fact +which stayed by him was that she had given him that look to remember, +given it to him with intent, beyond a doubt. + +They came out presently upon a long porch overhanging the shore of a +small lake. The September sun was already low, and the light upon the +blue hills in the distance was turning slowly to a dusky purple. The +place was very quiet, for it was growing late in the tourist season, and +the inn was remote from main highways of travel. + +"Can't we stay here just a bit?" King asked pleadingly. "It won't take +us more than an hour to get back if we go along at a fair pace. We came +by a roundabout way." + +With each hour that passed he was realizing more fully how he dreaded +the end of this unexpected and absorbing adventure. So far none of his +attempts to pave the way for other meetings, in other towns to which she +might be going in the course of her book selling, had resulted in +anything satisfactory. And even now Anne Linton was shaking her head. + +"I think I must ask you to take me back now," she said. "I want to come +into the house where I am staying not later than I usually do." + +So he had to leave the pleasant, vine-clad porch and take his place +beside her in the car again. It did not seem to him that he was having a +fair chance. But he thought of a plan and proceeded to put it into +execution. He drove steadily and in silence until the lights of the +nearing city were beginning to show faintly in the twilight, with the +sky still rich with colour in the west. Then, at a certain curve in the +road far above the rest of the countryside, he brought the car to a +standstill. + +"I can't bear to go on and end this day," he said in a low voice of +regret. "How can I tell when I shall see you again? Do you realize that +every time I have said a word about our meeting in the future you've +somehow turned me aside? Do you want me to understand that you would +rather never see me again?" + +Her face was toward the distant lights, and she did not answer for a +minute. Then she said slowly: "I should like very much to see you again, +Mr. King. But you surely understand that I couldn't make appointments +with you to meet me in other towns. This has happened and it has been +very pleasant, but it wouldn't do to make it keep happening. Even though +I travel about with a book to sell, I--shall never lose the sense +of--being under the protection of a home such as other girls have." + +"I wouldn't have you lose it--good heavens, no! I only--well--" And now +he stopped, set his teeth for an instant, and then plunged ahead. "But +there's something I can't lose either, and it's--you!" + +She looked at him then, evidently startled. "Mr. King, will you drive +on, please?" she said very quietly, but he felt something in her tone +which for an instant he did not understand. In the next instant he +thought he did understand it. + +He spoke hurriedly: "You don't know me very well yet, do you? But I +thought you knew me well enough to know that I wouldn't say a thing like +that unless I meant all that goes with it--and follows it. You see--I +love you. If--if you are not afraid of a man in a plaster jacket--it'll +come off some day, you know--I ask you to marry me." + +There was a long silence then, in which King felt his heart pumping +away for dear life. He had taken the bit between his teeth now, +certainly, and offered this girl, of whom he knew less than of any human +being in whom he had the slightest interest, all that he had to give. +Yet--he was so sure he knew her that, the words once out, he realized +that he was glad he had spoken them. + +At last she turned toward him. "You are a very brave man," she said, +"and a very chivalrous man." + +He laughed rather huskily. "It doesn't take much of either bravery or +chivalry for a man to offer himself to you." + +"It must take plenty of both. You are--what you are, in the big world +you live in. And you dare to trust an absolute stranger, whom you have +no means of knowing better, with that name of yours. Think, Mr. Jordan +King, what that name means to you--and to your mother." + +"I have thought. And I offer it to you. And I do know what you are. You +can't disguise yourself--any more than the Princess in the fairy tale. +Do you think all those notes I had from you at the hospital didn't tell +the story? I don't know why you are selling books from door to door--and +I don't want to know. What I do understand is--that you are the first of +your family to do it!" + +"Mr. King," she said gravely, "women are very clever at one +thing--cleverer than men. With a little study, a little training, a +little education, they can make a brave showing. I have known a shopgirl +who, after six months of living with a very charming society woman, +could play that woman's part without mistake. And when it came to +talking with men of brains, she could even use a few clever phrases and +leave the rest of the conversation to them, and they were convinced of +her brilliant mind." + +"You have not been a shopgirl," he said steadily. "You belong in a home +like mine. If you have lost it by some accident, that is only the +fortune of life. But you can't disguise yourself as a commonplace +person, for you're not. And--I can't let you go out of my life--I +can't." + +Again silence, while the sunset skies slowly faded into the dusky blue +of night, and the lights over the distant city grew brighter and +brighter. A light wind, warmly smoky with the pleasant fragrance of +burning bonfires, touched the faces of the two in the car and blew small +curly strands of hair about Anne Linton's ears. + +Presently she spoke. "I am going to promise to write to you now and +then," she said, "and give you each time an address where you may +answer, if you will promise not to come to me. I am going to tell you +frankly that I want your letters." + +"You want my letters--but not me?" + +"You put more of yourself into your letters than any one else I know. So +in admitting that I want your letters I admit that I want yourself--as a +good friend." + +"No more than that?" + +"That's quite enough, isn't it, for people who know each other only as +we do?" + +"It's not enough for me. If it's enough for you, then--well, it's as I +thought." + +"What did you think?" + +He hesitated, then spoke boldly: "No woman really wants--a mangled human +being for her own." + +Impulsively she laid her hand on his. Instantly he grasped it. "Please," +she said, "will you never say--or think--that, again?" + +He gazed eagerly into her face, still duskily visible to his scrutiny. +"I won't," he answered, "if you'll tell me you care for me. Oh, don't +you?--don't you?--not one bit? Just give me a show of a chance and I'll +make you care. I've _got_ to make you care. Why, I've thought of nothing +but you for months--dreamed of you, sleeping and waking. I can't stop; +it's too late. Don't ask me to stop--Anne--dear!" + +No woman in her senses could have doubted the sincerity of this young +man. That he was no adept at love making was apparent in the way he +stumbled over his phrases; in the way his voice caught in his throat; +in the way it grew husky toward the last of this impassioned pleading of +his. + +He still held her hand close. "Tell me you care--a little," he begged of +her silence. + +"No girl can be alone as I am now and not be touched by such words," she +said very gently after a moment's hesitation. "But--promising to marry +you is a different matter. I can't let you rashly offer me so much when +I know what it would mean to you to bring home a--book agent to your +mother!" + +He uttered a low exclamation. "My life is my own, to do with as I +please. If I'm satisfied, that's enough. You are what I want--all I +want. As for my mother--when she knows you--But we'll not talk of that +just yet. What I must know is--do you--can you--care for me--enough to +marry me?" His hand tightened on hers, his voice whispered in her ear: +"Anne, darling--can't you love me? I want you so--oh--I want you so! Let +me kiss you--just once, dear. That will tell you--" + +But she drew her hand gently but efficiently away; she spoke firmly, +though very low: "No--no! Listen--Jordan King. Sometime--by next spring +perhaps, I shall be in the place I call home. When that time comes I +will let you know. If you still care to, you may come and see me there. +Now--won't you drive on, please?" + +"Yes, if you'll let me--just once--_once_ to live on all those months! +Anne--" + +But, when he would have made action and follow close upon the heels of +pleading he found himself gently but firmly prevented by an uplifted +small hand which did not quite touch his nearing face. "Ah, don't spoil +that chivalry of yours," said her mellow, low voice. "Let me go on +thinking you are what I have believed you are all along. Be patient, and +prove whether this is real, instead of snatching at what might dull your +judgment!" + +"It wouldn't dull it--only confirm it. And--I want to make you remember +me." + +"You have provided that already," she admitted, at which he gave an +ejaculation as of relief--and of longing--and possibly of recognition of +her handling of the whole--from her point of view--rather difficult +situation. At the back of his mind, in spite of his disappointment at +being kept at arm's length when he wanted something much more definite, +was the recognition that here was precisely the show of spirit and +dignity which his judgment approved and admired. + +"I'll let you go, if I must; but I'll come to you--if you live in a +hovel--if you live in a cave--if you live--Oh, I know how you live!" + +"How do I live?" she asked, laughing a little unsteadily, and as if +there were tears in her eyes, though of this he could not be sure. + +"You live in a plain little house, with just a few of the things you +used to have about you; rows of books, a picture or two, and some old +china. Things may be a bit shabby, but everything is beautifully neat, +and there are garden flowers on the table, perhaps white lilacs!" + +"Oh, what a romanticist!" she said, through her soft laughter. "One +would think you wrote novels instead of specifications for concrete +walls. What if you come and find me living with my older sister, who +sews for a living, plain sewing, at a dollar a day? And we have a long +credit account at the grocery, which we can't pay? And at night our +little upstairs room is full of neighbours, untidy, loud-talking, +commonplace women? And the lamp smokes--" + +"It wouldn't smoke; you would have trimmed it," he answered, quickly and +with conviction. "But, even if it were all like that, you would still be +the perfect thing you are. And I would take you away--" + +"If you don't drive on, Mr. King," she interposed gently, "you will soon +be mentally unfit to drive at all. And I must be back before the +darkness has quite fallen. And--don't you think we have talked enough +about ourselves?" + +"I like that word," he declared as he obediently set the car in motion. +"Ourselves--that sounds good to me. As long as you keep me with you that +way I'll try to be satisfied. One thing I'm sure of: I've something to +work for now that I didn't have this morning. Oh, I know; you haven't +given me a thing. But you're going to let me come to see you next +spring, and that's worth everything to me. Meanwhile, I'll do my level +best--for you." + + * * * * * + +When he drew up before the door of the church, where, in spite of his +entreaties that he be allowed to take her to her lodging place, Anne +insisted on being left, he felt, in spite of all he had gained that day, +a sinking of the heart. Though the hour was early and the neighbourhood +at this time of day a quiet one, and though she assured him that she had +not far to go, he was unhappy to leave her thus unaccompanied. + +"I wish I could possibly imagine why it must be this way," he said to +himself as he stood hat in hand beside his car, watching Anne Linton's +quickly departing figure grow more and more shadowy as the twilight +enveloped it. "Well, one thing is certain: whatever she does there's a +good and sufficient reason; and I trust her." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +RED HEADED AGAIN + + +Crowding his hat upon his head with a vigorous jerk after his reluctant +parting with Anne Linton at the church door, Jordan King jumped into his +car and made his way slowly through the streets to the hotel where Aleck +awaited him. For the first few miles out of the city he continued to +drive at a pace so moderate that Aleck more than once glanced +surreptitiously at him, wondering if he were actually going to sleep at +the wheel. It was not until they were beyond the last environs and far +out in the open country that, quite suddenly, the car was released from +its unusual restraint and began to fly down the road toward home at the +old wild speed. + +Somehow or other, after this encounter, King could not settle down to +his work till he had seen Red Pepper Burns. He could not have explained +why this should be so, for he certainly did not intend to tell his +friend of the meeting with Anne Linton, or of the basis upon which his +affairs now stood. But he wanted to see Burns with a sort of hunger +which would not be satisfied, and he went to look him up one evening +when he himself had returned early from his latest trip to the concrete +dam. + +He found Burns just setting forth on a drive to see a patient in the +country, and King invited himself to go with him, running his own car +off at one side of the driveway and leaping into Burns's machine with +only a gay by-your-leave apology. But he had not more than slid into his +seat before he found that he was beside a man whom he did not know. + +King had long understood that Red Pepper's significant cognomen stood +for the hasty temper which accompanied the coppery hair and hazel eyes +of the man with the big heart. But such exhibitions of that temper as +King had witnessed had been limited to quick explosions from which the +smoke had cleared away almost as soon as the sound of warfare had died +upon the air. He was in no way prepared, therefore, to find himself in +the company of a man who was so angry that he could not--or would +not--speak to one of his best friends. + +"Fine night," began the young man lightly, trying again, after two +silent miles, to make way against the frost in the air. "I don't know +when we've had such magnificent September weather." + +No answer. + +"I hope you don't mind my going along. You needn't talk at all, you +know--and I'll be quiet, too, if you prefer." + +No answer. King was not at all sure that Burns heard him. The car was +running at a terrific pace, and the profile of the man at the wheel +against the dusky landscape looked as if it were carved out of stone. +The young man fell silent, wondering. Almost, he wished he had not been +so sure of his welcome, but there was no retreating now. + +Five miles into the country they ran, and King soon guessed that their +destination might be Sunny Farm, a home for crippled children which was +Ellen Burns's special charity, established by herself on a small scale a +few years before and greatly grown since in its size and usefulness. +Burns was its head surgeon and its devoted patron, and he was accustomed +to do much operative work in its well-equipped surgery, bringing out +cases which he found in the city slums or among the country poor, with +total disregard for any considerations except those of need and +suffering. King knew that the place and the work were dearer to the +hearts of both Doctor and Mrs. Burns than all else outside their own +home, and he began to understand that if anything had gone wrong with +affairs there Red Pepper would be sure to take it seriously. + +Quite as he had foreseen--since there were few homes on this road, +which ran mostly through thickly wooded country--the car rushed on to +the big farmhouse, lying low and long in the night, with pleasant lights +twinkling from end to end. Burns brought up with a jerk beside the +central porch, leaped out, and disappeared inside without a word of +explanation to his companion, who sat wondering and looking in through +the open door to the wide hall which ran straight through the house to +more big porches on the farther side. + +Everything was very quiet at this hour, according to the rules of the +place, all but the oldest patients being in bed and asleep by eight +o'clock. Therefore when, after an interval, voices became faintly +audible, there was nothing to prevent their reaching the occupant of the +car. + +In a front room upstairs at one side of the hall two people were +speaking, and presently through the open window Burns was heard to say +with incisive sternness: "I'll give you exactly ten minutes to pack your +bag and go--and I'll take you--to make sure you do go." + +A woman's voice, in a sort of deep-toned wail, answered: "You aren't +fair to me, Doctor Burns; you aren't fair! You--" + +"Fair!" The word was a growl of suppressed thunder. "Don't talk of +fairness--you! You don't know the meaning of the word. You haven't been +fair to a single kid under this roof, or to a nurse--or to any one of +us--you with your smiles--and your hypocrisy--you who can't be trusted. +That's the name for you--She-Who-Can't-Be-Trusted. Go pack that bag, +Mrs. Soule; I won't hear another word!" + +"Oh, Doctor--" + +"Go, I said!" + +Outside, in the car, Jordan King understood that if the person to whom +Burns was speaking had not been a woman that command of his might have +been accompanied by physical violence, and the offending one more than +likely have been ejected from the door by the thrust of two vigorous +hands on his shoulders. There was that in Burns's tone--all that and +more. His wrath was quite evidently no explosion of the moment, but the +culmination of long irritation and distrust, brought to a head by some +overt act which had settled the offender's case in the twinkling of an +eye. + +Burns came out soon after, followed by a woman well shrouded in a heavy +veil. + +King jumped out of the car. "I'm awfully sorry," he tried to say in +Burns's ear. "Just leave me and I'll walk back." + +"Ride on the running board," was the answer, in a tone which King knew +meant that he was requested not to argue about it. + +Therefore when the woman--to whom he was not introduced--was seated, he +took his place at her feet. To his surprise they did not move off in the +direction from which they had come, but went on over the hills for five +miles farther, driving in absolute silence, at high speed, and arriving +at a small station as a train was heard to whistle far off somewhere in +the darkness. + +Burns dashed into the station, bought a ticket, and had his passenger +aboard the train before it had fairly come to a standstill at the +platform. King heard him say no word of farewell beyond the statement +that a trunk would be forwarded in the morning. Then the whole strange +event was over; the train was only a rumble in the distance, and King +was in his place again beside the man he did not know. + + * * * * * + +Silence again, and darkness, with only the stars for light, and the +roadside rushing past as the car flew. Then suddenly, beside the deep +woods, a stop, and Burns getting out of the car, with the first +voluntary words he had spoken to King that night. + +"Sit here, will you? I'll be back--sometime." + +"Of course. Don't hurry." + +It was an hour that King sat alone, wondering. Where Burns had gone, he +had no notion, and no sound came back to give him hint. As far as King +knew there was no habitation back there in the depths into which his +companion had plunged; he could not guess what errand took him there. + +At last came a distant crashing as of one making his way through heavy +undergrowth, and the noise drew nearer until at length Burns burst +through into the road, wide of the place where he had gone in. Then he +was at the car and speaking to King, and his voice was very nearly his +own again. + +"Missed my trail coming back," he said. "I've kept you a blamed long +time, haven't I?" + +"Not a bit. Glad to wait." + +"Of course that's a nice, kind lie at this time of night, and when +you've no idea what you've been waiting for. Well, I'll tell you, and +then maybe you'll be glad you assisted at the job." + +He got in and drove off, not now at a furious pace, but at an ordinary +rate of speed which made speech possible. And after a little he spoke +again. "Jord," he said, "you don't know it, but I can be a fiend +incarnate." + +"I don't believe it," refused King stoutly. + +"It's absolutely true. When I get into a red rage I could twist a neck +more easily than I can get a grip on myself. Sometimes I'm afraid I'll +do it. Years back when I had a rush of blood to the head of that sort I +used to take it out in swearing till the atmosphere was blue; but I +can't do that any more." + +"Why not?" King asked, with a good deal of curiosity. + +"I did it once too often--and the last time I sent a dying soul to the +other world with my curses in its ears--the soul of a child, Jord. I +lost my head because his mother had disobeyed my orders, and the little +life was going out when it might have stayed. When I came to myself I +realized what I'd done--and I made my vow. Never again, no matter what +happened! And I've kept it. But sometimes, as to-night--Well, there's +only one thing I can do: keep my tongue between my teeth as long as I +can, and then--get away somewhere and smash things till I'm black and +blue." + +"That's what you've been doing back in the woods?" King ventured to ask. + +"Rather. Anyhow, it's evened up my circulation and I can be decent +again. I'm not going to tell you what made me rage like the bull of +Bashan, for it wouldn't be safe yet to let loose on that. It's enough +that I can treat a good comrade like you as I did and still have him +stand by." + +"I felt a good deal in the way, but I'm glad now I was with you." + +"I'm glad, too, if it's only that you've discovered at last what manner +of man I am when the evil one gets hold of me. None of us likes to be +persistently overrated, you know." + +"I don't think the less of you for being angry when you had a just +cause, as I know you must have had." + +"It's not the being angry; it's the losing control." + +"But you didn't." + +"Didn't I?" A short, grim laugh testified to Burns's opinion on this +point. "Ask that woman I put on the train to-night. Jord, on her arm is +a black bruise where I gripped her when she lied to me; I gripped her--a +woman. You might as well know. Now--keep on respecting me if you can." + +"But I do," said Jordan King. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +A STRANGE DAY + + +"Len, will you go for a day in the woods with me?" + +Ellen Burns looked up from the old mahogany secretary which had been +hers in the southern-home days. She was busily writing letters, but the +request, from her busy husband, was so unusual that it arrested her +attention. Her glance travelled from his face to the window and back +again. + +"I know it's pretty frosty," he acknowledged, "but the sun is bright, +and I'll build you a windbreak that'll keep you snug. I'm aching for a +day off--with you." + +"Artful man! You know I can't resist when you put it that way, though I +ought not to leave this desk for two hours. Give me half an hour, and +tell me what you want for lunch." + +"Cynthia and I'll take care of that. She's putting up the stuff now, +subject to your approval." + +He was off to the kitchen, and Ellen finished the note she had begun, +put away the writing materials and letters, and ran up to her room. By +the end of the stipulated half hour she was down again, trimly clad in a +suit of brown tweeds, with a big coat for extra warmth and a close hat +and veil for breeze resistance. + +"That's my girl! You never look prettier to my eyes than when you are +dressed like this. It's the real comrade look you have then, and I feel +as if we were shoulder to shoulder, ready for anything that might come." + +"Just as if it weren't always that," she said in merry reproach as she +took her place beside him and the car rolled off. + +"It's always great fun to go off with you unexpectedly like this," she +went on presently. "It seems so long since we've done it. It's been such +a busy year. Is everybody getting well to-day, that you can manage a +whole day?" + +"All but one, and he doesn't need me just now. I could keep busy, of +course, but I got a sudden hankering for a day all alone with you in the +woods; and after that idea once struck me I'd have made way for it +anyhow, short of actually running away from duty." + +"You need it, I know. We'll just leave all care behind and remember +nothing except how happy we are to be together. That never grows old, +does it, Red?" + +"Never!" He spoke almost with solemnity, and gave her a long look as he +said it, which she met with one to match it. "You dear!" he murmured. +"Len, do you know I never loved you so well as I do to-day?" + +"I wonder why?" She was smiling, and her colour, always duskily soft in +her cheek, grew a shade warmer. "Is it the brown tweeds?" + +"It's the brown tweeds, and the midnight-dark hair, and the beautiful +black eyes, and--the lovely soul of my wife." + +"Why, Red, dear--and all this so early in the morning? How will you end +if you begin like this?" + +"I don't know--or care." Something strange looked out of his eyes for a +minute. "I know what I want to say now and I'm saying it. So much of the +time I'm too busy to make love to my wife, I'm going to do it +to-day--all day. I warn you now, so you can sidetrack me if you get +tired of it." + +"I'm very likely to," she said with a gay tenderness. "To have you make +love to me without the chance of a telephone call to break in will be a +wonderful treat." + +"It sure will to me." + +It was a significant beginning to a strange day. They drove for twenty +miles, to find a certain place upon a bluff overlooking a small lake of +unusual beauty, far out of the way of the ordinary motor traveller. +They climbed a steep hill, coming out of the wooded hillside into the +full sunlight of the late October day, where spread an extended view of +the countryside, brilliant with autumn foliage. The air was crisp and +invigorating, and a decided breeze was stirring upon this lofty point, +so that the windbreak which Burns began at once to build was a necessary +protection if they were to remain long. + +An hour of hard work, at which Ellen helped as much as she was allowed, +established a snug camp, its back against a great bowlder, its windward +side sheltered by a thick barrier of hemlocks cleverly placed, a brisk +bonfire burning in an angle where an improvised chimney carried off its +smoke and left the corner clear and warm. + +"There!" Burns exclaimed in a tone of satisfaction as he threw himself +down upon the pine needle-strewn ground at Ellen's side. "How's this for +a comfortable nest? Think we can spend six contented hours here, my +honey?" + +"Six days if you like. How I wish we could!" + +"So do I. Jove, how I'd like it! I haven't had enough of you to satisfy +me for many a moon. And there's no trying to get it, except by running +away like this." + +"We ought to do it oftener." + +"We ought, but we can't. At least we couldn't. Perhaps now--" + +He broke off, staring across the valley where the lake lay to the +distant hills, smoky blue and purple in spite of the clear sunlight +which lay upon them. + +"Perhaps now--what?" + +"Well--I might not be able to keep up my activity forever, and the time +might come when I should have to take less work and more rest." + +"But you said 'now.'" + +"Did I? I was just looking ahead a bit. Len, are you hungry, or shall we +wait a while for lunch?" + +"Don't you want a little sleep before you eat? You haven't had too much +of it lately." + +"It would taste rather good--if I might take it with my head in your +lap." + +She arranged her own position so that she could maintain it comfortably, +and he extended his big form at full length upon the rug he had brought +up from the car and upon which she was already sitting. He smiled up +into her face as he laid his head upon her knees, and drew one of her +hands into his. "Now your little boy is perfectly content," he said. + + * * * * * + +It was an hour before he stirred, an hour in which Ellen's eyes had +silently noted that which had escaped them hitherto, a curious change in +his colour as he lay with closed eyes, a thinness of the flesh over the +cheek bones, dark shadows beneath the eyes. Whether he slept she could +not be sure. But when he sat up again these signs of wear and tear +seemed to vanish at the magic of his smile, which had never been +brighter. Nevertheless she watched him with a new sense of anxiety, +wondering if there might really be danger of his splendid physique +giving way before the rigour of his life. + +She noted that he did not eat heartily at lunch, though he professed to +enjoy it; and afterward he was his old boyish self for a long time. Then +he grew quiet, and a silence fell between the pair while they sat +looking off into the distance, the October sunlight on their heads. + +And then, quite suddenly, something happened. + +"Red! What is the matter?" Ellen asked, startled. + +In spite of the summer warmth of the spot in which they sat her +husband's big frame had begun to quiver and shake before her very eyes. +Evidently he was trying hard to control the strange fit of shivering +which had seized him. + +"Don't be s-scared, d-dear," he managed to get out between rigid jaws. +"It's just a bit of a ch-chill. I'll b-be all right in a m-minute." + +"In all this sunshine? Why, Red!" Ellen caught up the big coat she had +brought to the place and laid it about his shoulders--"you must have +taken cold. But how could you? Come--we must go at once." + +"N-not just yet. I'll g-get over this s-soon." + +He drew his arms about his knees, clasping them and doing his best to +master the shivering, while Ellen watched him anxiously. Never in her +life with Red had she seen him cold. His rugged frame, accustomed to all +weathers, hardened by years of sleeping beside wide-opened windows in +the wintriest of seasons, was always healthily glowing with warmth when +others were frankly freezing. + +The chill was over presently, but close upon its heels followed +reaction, and Red Pepper's face flushed feverishly as he said, with a +gallant attempt at a smile: "Sit down again a minute, dear, while I tell +you what I'm up against. I wasn't sure, but this looks like it. You've +got to know now, because I'm undoubtedly in for a bit of trouble--and +that means you, too." + +She waited silently, but her hand slipped into his. To her surprise he +drew it gently away. "Try the other one," he said. "It's in better shape +for holding." + +She looked down at the hand he had withdrawn and which now lay upon his +knee. It was the firmly knit and sinewy hand she knew so well, the +typical hand of the surgeon with its perfectly kept, finely sensitive +fingertips, its broad and powerful thumb, its strong but not too thick +wrist. Not a blemish marked its fair surface, yet--was it very slightly +swollen? She could hardly be sure. + +"Dear, tell me," she begged. "What has happened? Are you hurt--or +ill--and haven't let me know?" + +"I thought it might not amount to anything; it's only a scratch in the +palm. But--" + +"Red--did you get it--operating? On what?" + +He nodded. "Operating. It's the usual way, the thing we all expect to +get some day. I've been lucky so far; that's all." + +"But--you didn't give yourself a scratch; you never have done that?" + +"No, not up to date anyhow. I might easily enough; I just haven't +happened to." + +"Amy didn't?--She couldn't!" + +"She didn't--and couldn't, thank heaven. She'd kill herself if she ever +did that unlucky trick. No, she wasn't assisting this time. It was an +emergency case, early yesterday morning--one of the other men brought in +the case. It was hopeless, but the family wanted us to try." + +"What sort of a case, Red?" Ellen's very lips had grown white. + +"Now see here, sweetheart, I had to tell you because I knew I was in +for a little trouble, but there's no need of your knowing any more than +this about it. It was just an accident--nobody's fault. The blamed +electric lights went off--for not over ten seconds, but it was the wrong +ten seconds. I didn't even know I was scratched till the thing began to +set up a row. I don't even yet understand how I got it in the palm. +That's unusual." + +"Who did it?" + +"I'm not going to tell you. He feels badly enough now, and it wasn't his +fault. He asked me at the time if he had touched me in the dark and I +said no. It was as slight a thing as that. If we'd known it at the time +we'd have fixed it up. We didn't, and that's all there was to it." + +"You must tell me what sort of a case it was, Red." + +He looked down at her. The two pairs of eyes met unflinchingly for a +minute, and each saw straight into the depths of the other. Burns +thought the eyes into which he gazed had never been more beautiful; +stabbed though they were now with intense shock, they were yet speaking +to him such utter love as it is not often in the power of man to +inspire. + +He managed still to talk lightly. "I expect you know. What's the use of +using scientific terms? The case was rottenly septic; never mind the +cause. But--I'm going to be able to throw the thing off. Just give me +time." + +"Let me see it, Red." + +Reluctantly he turned the hand over, showing the small spot in which was +quite clearly the beginning of trouble. "Doesn't look like much, does +it?" he said. + +"And it is not even protected." + +"What was the use? The infection came at the time." + +"And you did all that work in the windbreak. Oh, you ought not to have +done that!" + +"Nonsense, dear. I wanted to, and I did it mostly with my left hand +anyhow." + +"Your blood must be of the purest," she said steadily. + +"It sure is. I expect I'll get my reward now for letting some things +alone that many men care for, and that I might have cared for, too--if +it hadn't been for my mother--and my wife." + +"You are strong--strong." + +"I am--a regular Titan. Yes, we'll fight this thing through somehow; +only I have to warn you it'll likely be a fight. I'll go to the +hospital." + +"No!" It was a cry. + +"No? Better think about that. Hospital's the best place for such cases." + +"It can't be better than home--when it's like ours. We'll fight our +fight there, Red--and nowhere else." + +He put one hand to his arm suddenly with an involuntary movement and a +contraction of the brow. But in the next breath he was smiling again. +"Perhaps we'd better be getting back," he admitted. "My head's beginning +to be a trifle unsteady. But, I'm glad a thousand times we've had this +day." + +"Was it wise to take it, dear?" + +"I'm sure of it. What difference could it make? Now we've had it--to +remember." + +She shivered, there in the warm October sunlight. A chill seemed +suddenly to have come into the air, and to have struck her heart. + +No more words passed between them until they were almost home. Then +Ellen said, very quietly: "Red, would you be any safer in the hospital +than at home?" + +"Not safer, but where it would be easier for all concerned, in case +things get rather thick." + +"Easier for you, too?" + +He looked at her. "Do I have to speak the truth?" + +"You must. If you would rather be there--" + +"I would rather be as near you as I can stay. There's no use denying +that. But Van Horn wants me at the hospital." + +"Is he to look after you?" + +"Yes. Queer, isn't it? But he wants the job. No," at the unspoken +question in her face, "it wasn't Van. But he came in just as the trouble +began to show and--well, you know we're the best of friends now, and I +think I'd rather have him--and Buller, good old Buller--than anybody +else." + +"Oh, but you won't need them both?" she cried, and then bit her lip. + +"Of course not. But you know how the profession are--if one of them gets +down they all fall over one another to offer their services." + +"They may all offer them, but they will have to come to you. You are +going to stay at home. You shall have the big guest room--made as you +want it. Just tell me what to do--" + +"You may as well strip it," he told her quietly. "And--Len, I'd rather +be right there than anywhere else in the world. I think, when it's +ready, I'll just go to bed. I'd bluff a bit longer if I could, +but--perhaps--" + +"I'm sure you ought," she said as quietly as he. But she was very glad +when the car turned in at the driveway. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +CLEARED DECKS + + +Two hours later, under her direction and with her efficient help, +Cynthia and Johnny Carruthers in medical parlance had "stripped" the +guest room, putting it into the cleared bare order most useful for the +purpose needed. If Ellen's heart was heavy as she saw the change made +she let nothing show. And when, presently, she called her husband from +the couch where he had lain, feverish and beginning to be tortured by +pain, and put him between the cool, fresh sheets, she had her reward in +the look he gave, first at the room and then at her. + +"Decks all cleared for action," he commented with persistent +cheerfulness, "and the captain on deck. Well--let them begin to fire; +we're ready. All I know is that I'm glad I'm on your ship. Just pray, +Len, will you--that I keep my nerve?" + +This was the beginning, as Burns himself had foreseen, of that which +proved indeed to be a long fight. Strong of physique though he +unquestionably was, pure as was the blood which flowed in his veins, +the poison he had received unwittingly and therefore taken no immediate +measures to combat was able to overcome his powers of resistance and +take shattering hold upon his whole organism. There followed day after +day and week after week of prostrating illness, during which he suffered +much torturing pain in the affected hand and arm, with profound +depression of mind and body, though he bore both as bravely as was to +have been expected. Two nurses, Amy Mathewson and Selina Arden, +alternated in attendance upon him, day and night, and Ellen herself was +always at hand to act as substitute, or to share in the care of the +patient when it was more than ordinarily exacting. + +As she watched the powerful form of her husband grow daily weaker before +the assaults of one of the most treacherous enemies modern science has +to face, she felt herself in the grip of a great dread which could not +be for an hour thrown off. She did not let go of her courage; but +beneath all her serenity of manner--remarked often in wonder by the +nurses and physicians--lay the fear which at times amounted to a +conviction that for her had come the end of earthly happiness. + +She was able to appreciate none the less the devoted and skillful +attention given to Burns by his colleagues. Dr. Max Buller had long been +his attached friend and ally, and of him such service as he now +rendered was to have been counted on. But concerning Dr. James Van Horn, +although Ellen well knew how deeply he felt in Burns's debt for having +in all probability saved his life only a few months earlier, she had had +no notion what he had to offer in return. She had not imagined how warm +a heart really lay beneath that polished urbanity of manner with its +suggestion of coldness in the very tone of his voice--hitherto. She grew +to feel a distinct sense of relief and dependence every time he entered +the door, and his visits were so many that it came to seem as if his +motor were always standing at the curb. + +"You know, Len, Van's a tremendous trump," Burns himself said to her +suddenly, in the middle of one trying night when Doctor Van Horn had +looked in unexpectedly to see if he might ease his patient and secure +him a chance of rest after many hours of pain. "It seems like a queer +dream, sometimes, to open my eyes and see him sitting there, looking at +me as if I were a younger brother and he cared a lot." + +"He does care," Ellen answered positively. "You would be even surer of +it if you could hear him talk with me alone. He speaks of you as if he +loved you--and what is there strange about that? Everybody loves you, +Red. I'm keeping a list of the people who come to ask about you and +send you things. You haven't heard of half of them. And to-day Franz +telephoned to offer to come and play for you some night when you +couldn't sleep with the pain. He begged to be allowed to do the one +thing he could to show his sympathy." + +"Bless his heart! I'd like to hear him. I often wish my ears would +stretch to reach him in his orchestra." Burns moved restlessly as he +spoke. A fresh invasion of trouble in his hand and arm was reaching a +culmination, and no palliative measures could ease him long. "You've no +idea, Len," he whispered as Ellen's hand strayed through his heavy +coppery locks with the soothing touch he loved well, "what it means to +me to have you stand by me like this. If I give in now it won't be for +want of your supporting courage." + +"It's you who have the courage, Red--wonderful courage." + +He shook his head. "It's just the thought of you--and the Little-Un--and +Bobby Burns--that's all. If it wasn't for you--" + +He turned away his head. She knew the thing he had to fear--the thing +she feared for him. Though his very life was in danger it was not that +which made the threatening depths of black shadow into which he looked. +If he should come out of this fight with a crippled right hand there +would be no more work for him about which he could care. Neither Van +Horn nor Buller would admit that there was danger of this; but Grayson, +who had seen the hand yesterday; Fields, who was making blood counts for +the case; Lenhart and Stevenson, who had come to make friendly calls +every few days and who knew from Fields how things were going--all were +shaking their heads and saying in worried tones that it looked pretty +"owly" for the hand, and that Van Horn and Buller would do well if they +pulled Burns through at all. + +Outside of the profession Jordan King was closest in touch with Burns's +case. He persistently refused to believe that all would not come out as +they desired. He came daily, brought all sorts of offerings for the +patient's comfort, and always ran up to see his friend, hold his left +hand for a minute and smile at him, without a hint in his ruddy face of +the wrench at the heart he experienced each time at sight of the +steadily increasing devastation showing in the face on the pillow. + +"You're a trump, Jord," Burns said weakly to him one morning. King had +just finished a heart-warming report of certain messages brought from +some of Burns's old chronic patients in the hospital wards, where it was +evident the young man had gone on purpose to collect them. "Every time I +look at you I think what an idiot I was ever to imagine you needed me +to put backbone into you, last spring." + +"But I did--and you did it. And if you think I showed more backbone to +go through a thing that hardly took it out of me at all than you to +stand this devilish slow torture and weakness--well, it just shows +you've lost your usual excellent judgment. See?" + +"I see that you're one of the best friends a man ever had. There's only +one other who could do as much to keep my head above water--and he isn't +here." + +"Why isn't he? Who is he?" demanded King eagerly. "Tell me and I'll get +him." + +"No, no. He could do no more than is being done. I merely get to +thinking of him and wishing I could see him. It's my old friend and chum +of college days, John Leaver, of Baltimore." + +"The big surgeon I've heard you and Mrs. Burns speak of? Great heavens, +he'd come in a minute if he knew!" + +"I've no doubt he would, but I happen to know he's abroad just now." + +King studied his friend's face, saw that Burns was already weary with +the brief visit, and soon went away. But it was to a consultation with +Mrs. Burns as to the possibility of communicating with Doctor Leaver. + +"I wrote his wife not long ago of Red's illness," Ellen said, "but I +didn't state all the facts; somehow I couldn't bring myself to do that. +They are in London; they go over every winter. I had a card only +yesterday from Charlotte giving a new address and promising to write +soon." + +"Wasn't he the man you told me of who had a bad nervous breakdown a few +years ago? The one Red had stay with you here until he got back his +nerve?" + +"Yes; and he has been even a more brilliant operator ever since." + +"I remember the whole story; there was a lot of thrill in it as you told +it. How Red made him rest and build up and then fairly forced him to +operate, against his will, to prove to him that he had got his nerve +back? Jove! Do you think that man wouldn't cross the ocean in a hurry if +he thought he could lift his finger to help our poor boy?" + +King's speech had taken on such a fatherly tone of late that Ellen was +not surprised to hear him thus allude to his senior. + +"Yes, Jack Leaver would do anything for Red, but I know Red would never +let us summon him from so far." + +"Summon him from the antipodes--I would. And we don't have to consult +Red. His wish is enough. Leave it to me, Mrs. Burns; I'll take all the +responsibility." + +She smiled at him, feeling that she must not express the very natural +and unwelcome thought that to call a friend from so far away was to +admit that the situation was desperate. Burns had said many times that +Doctor Van Horn was using the very latest and most acceptable methods +for his relief, and that his confidence in him was absolute. None the +less she knew that the very sight of John Leaver's face would be like +that of a shore light to a ship groping in a heavy fog. + +Within twenty-four hours Jordan King came dashing in to wave a cable +message before her. "Read that, and thank heaven that you have such +friends in the world." + +At a glance her eyes took in the pregnant line, and the first tears she +had shed leaped to her eyes and misted them, so that she had to wipe +them away to read the welcome words again. + + We sail Saturday. Love to Doctor and Mrs. Burns. + + LEAVER. + +A week later, Burns, waking from an uneasy slumber, opened his eyes upon +a new figure at his bedside. For a moment he stared uncomprehending into +the dark, distinguished face of his old friend, then put out his +uninjured hand with a weak clutch. + +"Are you real, Jack?" he demanded in a whisper. + +"As real as that bedpost. And mighty glad to see you, my dear boy. They +tell me the worst is over, and that you're improving. That's worth the +journey to see." + +"You didn't come from--England?" + +"Of course I did. I'd come from the end of the world, and you know it! +Why in the name of friendship didn't somebody send me word before?" + +"Who sent it now?" + +"That's a secret. I hoped to be able to do something for you, Red, just +to even up the score a little, but the thing that's really been done has +been by yourself. You put your own clean blood into this tussle and it's +brought you through." + +"I don't feel so very far through yet, but I suppose I'm not quite so +much of a dead fish as I was a week ago. There's only one thing that +bothers me." + +"I can guess. Well, Red, I saw Doctor Van Horn on my way upstairs, and +he tells me you're going to get a good hand out of this. He'll be up +shortly to dress it, and then I may see for myself." + +"That will be a comfort. I've wished a thousand times you might, though +nobody could have given me better care than these bully fellows have. +But I've a sort of superstition that one look at trouble from Jack +Leaver is enough to make it cut and run." + +By and by Dr. John Leaver came downstairs and joined his wife and Ellen. +His face was grave with its habitual expression, but it lighted as the +two looked up. "He's had about as rough a time as a man can and weather +it," he said; "but I think the trouble is cornered at last, and there'll +be no further outbreak. And the hand will come out better than could +have been expected. He will be able to use it perfectly in time. But it +will take him a good while to build up. He must have a sea voyage--a +long one. That will do you all kinds of good, too," he added, his keen +eyes on the face of his friend's wife. + +"She looks etherealized," Charlotte Leaver said, studying Ellen +affectionately. "You've had a long, anxious time, haven't you, Len, +darling?" Mrs. Leaver went on. "And we knew nothing--we who care more +than anybody in the world. You can't imagine how glad we are to be here +now, even though we can't help a bit." + +"You can help, you do. And I know what it means to Red to have his +beloved friend come to him." + +"Then I hope you know what it means to me to come," said John Leaver. + +The Leavers stayed for several days, while Burns continued to improve, +and before they left they had the pleasure of seeing him up and +partially dressed, the bandages on his injured hand reduced in extent, +and his eyes showing his release from torture. His face and figure gave +touching evidence of what he had endured, but he promised them that +before they saw him again he would be looking like himself. + +"I wonder," Burns said, on the March day when he first came downstairs +and dropped into his old favourite place in a corner of the big blue +couch, "whether any other fellow was ever so pampered as I. I look like +thirty cents, but I feel, in spite of this abominable limpness, as if my +stock were worth a hundred cents on the dollar. And when we get back +from the ocean trip I expect to be a regular fighting Fijian." + +"You look better every day, dear," Ellen assured him. "And when it's all +over, and you have done your first operation, you'll come home and say +you were never so happy in your life." + +Burns laughed. He looked over at Jordan King, who had come in on purpose +to help celebrate the event of the appearance downstairs. "She promises +me an operation as she would promise the Little-Un a sweetie, eh? Well, +I can't say she isn't right. I was a bit tired when this thing began, +but when I get my strength back I know how my little old 'lab' and +machine shop will call to me. Just to-day I got an idea in my head that +I believe will work out some day. My word, I know it will!" + +The other two looked at each other, smiling joyously. + +"He's getting well," said Ellen Burns. + +"No doubt of it in the world," agreed Jordan King. + +"Sit down here where I can look at you both," commanded the +convalescent. "Jord, isn't my wife something to look at in that blue +frock she's wearing? I like these things she melts into evenings, like +that smoky blue she has on now. It seems to satisfy my eyes." + +"Not much wonder in that. She would satisfy anybody's eyes." + +"That's quite enough about me," Ellen declared. "The thing that's really +interesting is that your eyes are brighter to-night, Red, than they have +been for two long months. I believe it's getting downstairs." + +"Of course it is. Downstairs has been a mythical sort of place for a +good while. I couldn't quite believe in it. I've thought a thousand +times of this blue couch and these pillows. I've thought of that old +grand piano of yours, and of how it would seem to hear you play it +again. Play for me now, will you, Len?" + +She sat down in her old place, and his eyes watched her hungrily, as +King could plainly see. To the younger man the love between these two +was something to study and believe in, something to hope for as a +wonderful possibility in his own case. + +When Ellen stopped playing Burns spoke musingly. Speech seemed a +necessity for him to-night--happiness overflowed and must find +expression. + +"I've had a lot of stock advice for my patients that'll mean something I +understand for myself now," he said. He sat almost upright among the +blue pillows, his arm outstretched along the back of the couch, his long +legs comfortably extended. It was no longer the attitude of the invalid +but of the well man enjoying earned repose. "I wonder how often I've +said to some tired mother or too-busy housewife who longed for rest: 'If +you were to become crippled or even forbidden to work any more and made +to rest for good, how happy these past years would seem to you when you +were tired because you had accomplished something.' I can say that now +with personal conviction of its truth. It looks to me as if to come in +dog-tired and drop into this corner with the memory of a good job done +would be the best fun I've ever had." + +"I know," King nodded. "I learned that, too, last spring." + +"Of course you did. And now, instead of going to work, I've got to take +this blamed sea voyage of a month. Van and Leaver are pretty hard on me, +don't you think? The consolation in that, though, is that my wife needs +it quite as much as I do. I want to tan those cheeks of hers. Len, will +you wear the brown tweeds on shipboard?" + +"Of course I will. How your mind seems to run to clothes to-night. What +will Your Highness wear himself?" + +"The worst old clothes I can find. Then when I get back I'll go to the +tailor's and start life all over again, with the neatest lot of stuff he +can make me--a regular honeymoon effect." Burns laughed, lifting his +chin with the old look of purpose and power touching his thin face. + +"I'm happy to-night," he went on; "there's no use denying it. I'm not +sorry, now it's over, I've had this experience, for I've learned some +things I've never known before and wouldn't have found out any other +way. I know now what it means to be down where life doesn't seem worth +much, and how it feels to have the other fellow trying to pull you out. +I know how the whisper of a voice you love sounds to you in the middle +of a black night, when you think you can't bear another minute of pain. +Oh, I know a lot of things I can't talk about, but they'll make a +difference in the future. If I don't have more patience with my patients +it'll be because memory is a treacherous thing, and I've forgotten what +I have no business to forget--because the good Lord means me to +remember!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +WHITE LILACS AGAIN + + +It was the first day of May. Burns and Ellen had not been at home two +days after their return from the long, slow sea voyage which had done +wonders for them both, when Burns received a long-distance message which +sent him to his wife with his eyes sparkling in the old way. + +"Great luck, Len!" he announced. "I'm to get my first try-out in +operating, after the late unpleasantness, on an out-of-town case. Off in +an hour with Amy for a place two hundred miles away in a spot I never +heard of--promises to be interesting. Anyhow, I feel like a small boy +with his first kite, likely to go straight off the ground hitched to the +tail of it." + +"I'm glad for you, Red. And I wish"--she bit her lip and turned +away--"it may be a wonderful case." + +"That's not what you started to say." He came close, laid a hand on +either side of her face, and turned it up so that he could look into it, +his lips smiling. "Tell me. I'll wager I know what you wish." + +"No, you can't." + +"That you could go with me--to take Amy's place and assist." + +A flood of colour poured over her face, such a telltale, significant +colour as he had rarely seen there before. She would have concealed it +from him, but he was merciless. A strange, happy look came into his own +face. "Len, don't hide that from me. It's the one thing I've always +wished you'd show, and you never have. I'm such a jealous beggar myself +I've wanted you to care--that way, and I've never been able to discover +a trace of it." + +"But I'm not really jealous in the way you think. How could I be?--with +not the slightest cause. It's only--envy of Amy because she is--so +necessary to you. O Red, I never, never meant to say it!" + +"I'd rather hear you say it than anything else on earth. I'd like to +hear you own that you were mad with jealousy, because I've been eaten up +with it myself ever since I first laid eyes on you. Not that you've ever +given me a reason for it, but because it's my red-headed nature. Now I +must go; but I'll take your face with me, my Len, and if I do a good +piece of work it'll be for love of you." + +"And of your work, Red. I'm not jealous of that; I'm too proud of it." + +"I know you are, bless you." + +Then he was off, all his old vigour showing in his preparations for the +hurried trip, and as he went away Ellen felt as might those on shore +watching a lusty life-saver put off in a boat to pull for a sinking +ship. + + * * * * * + +Burns and Amy Mathewson were away three days, during which Red kept +Ellen even more closely in touch with himself than usual, by means of +the long wire. When he returned it was with the bearing of a conqueror, +for the case had tried his regained mettle and he had triumphed more +surely than he could have hoped. + +"The hand's as good as new, Len, and the touch not a particle affected. +Van's a trump, and I stopped on the way out to tell him so. He was +pleased as a boy; think of it, Len--my ancient enemy and my new good +friend! And the case is fine as silk. They've a good local man to look +after it till I come again, which will be Thursday. And I'm going to +drive there--and take you--and Jord King and Jord's mother. How's that +for a plan?" + +"It sounds very jolly, Red, but will the Kings go? And why Mrs. King? +Will she care to?" + +"Because I've found some old friends of hers in the place, though I'll +not tell her whom. Besides, I want to keep on her right side, for +reasons. And Jord's back has been bothering him lately and I've +prescribed a rest. We'll take the Kings' limousine and go in state. +It'll be arranged in five minutes, see if it won't. By the way, Jord +says Aleck's new arm is really going to do him some service besides +improving his looks." + +He pulled her away to the telephone and held her on his knee while he +talked to Jordan King, giving her a laughing hug, when, to judge by the +things he was saying into the transmitter, he had brought about his +effect. + +"Yes, I know I sound crazy," he admitted to King, "but you must give +something to a man who has been buried alive and dug up again. I've +taken this notion and I'm going to carry it through. Mrs. King will +enjoy every foot of the way, and you and I will jump out and pick apple +blossoms for the ladies whenever they ask. It's a peach of a plan, and +the whole idea is to minister to my pride. I want to arrive in a great +prince of a car like yours and impress the natives down there. See? Yes, +go and put it up to your mother, and then call me up. Don't you dare say +no!" + +"No wonder he's astonished," Ellen commented while they waited. "For +you, who are never content except when you're at the steering wheel, to +ask Jordan, who is another just like you, to elect to travel in a +limousine with a liveried chauffeur--well, I admit I am puzzled myself." + +"Why, it's simple enough. I want to take you and Mrs. Alexander King. +She wouldn't go a step in Jord's roadster at his pace. And if she would, +and we went in pairs, Jord would be always wanting to change off and +take you with him--and as you very well know I'm not made that way. Stop +guessing, Len, and prepare yourself to break down Mrs. King's +opposition, if she makes any--which I don't expect." + +Mrs. King made no opposition, or none which her son thought best to +convey to the Burnses, and the trip was arranged. + +"Is there a good hotel in the place?" Ellen asked. + +"No hotel within miles--nor anything else. We're to stay overnight with +the family. You won't mind. They can put us up pretty comfortably, even +if not just as we're accustomed to be." Burns's eyes were twinkling, and +he refused to say more on the subject. + +It did not matter. It was early May, and the world was a wilderness of +budding life, and to go motoring seemed the finest way possible to get +into sympathy with spring at her loveliest. And although Ellen would +have much preferred to drive alone with her husband in his own car, she +found herself anticipating the affair, as it was now arranged, with not +a little curiosity to stimulate her interest. Mrs. Alexander King, for +her son's sake, was sure to be a complaisant and agreeable companion, +and Ellen was glad to feel that such a pleasure might come her way. + +"This is great stuff!" exulted Jordan King early on Thursday morning as +the big, shining car, standing before Burns's door, received its full +complement of passengers. "Mother and I are tremendously honoured, +aren't we, mother?" + +"Even though we had the audacity to invite ourselves and ask for this +magnificent car?" Burns inquired, grasping Mrs. Alexander King's gloved +hand, and smiling at her as her delicate face was lifted to him with a +look of really charming greeting. He knew well enough that she liked him +in spite of certain pretty plain words he had said to her in the past, +and he had prepared himself to make her like him still better on this +journey together. "I'm the one who is responsible, you know. I've merely +broken out in a new place." + +"We appreciate your caring to include us in your party," Mrs. King said +cordially. "The car is all too little used, for Jordan prefers his own, +and I go about mostly in the small coupe. I have never taken so long a +drive as you plan, and it will doubtless be a pleasant experience. I see +so little of my son I am happy to be with him on such a trip." + +"Altogether we're mightily pleased with the whole arrangement," declared +Jordan King, regarding Mrs. Burns with high approval. "Mother, did you +ever see a more distinguished-looking pair?" + +"In spite of our brown faces?" Ellen challenged him gayly. + +"My wife's face simply turns peachy when she tans. I look like an +Indian," observed Burns, bestowing certain professional luggage where it +would be most out of the way. + +"That's it; you've said it. Great Indian Chief go make big medicine for +sick squaw; take along whole wigwam; wigwam tickled to death to go!" And +King settled himself with an air of complete satisfaction. + +He had had no word from Anne Linton for nearly two months, and was as +restless as a young man may well be when his affairs do not go to please +him. She had kept her promise and had written from time to time, but +though her letters were the most interesting human documents King had +ever dreamed a woman could write, they were, from the point of view of +the suitor, extremely unsatisfying. As she had agreed, she had given him +with each letter an address to which he might send an immediate reply, +and he had made the most of each such opportunity; but, since it takes +two to seal a bargain, he had not been able to feel his cause much +advanced by all his efforts. He had welcomed this chance to accompany +Burns as a diversion from his restless thoughts, for a few days' +interval in his engineering plans, caused by a delay in the arrival of +certain necessary material, was making him wild with eagerness for +something--anything--to happen. + +Two hundred miles in a high-powered car over finely macadamized roads +are more quickly and comfortably covered in these days than a +thirty-mile drive behind horses over such country highways as existed a +decade ago. Aleck, at the wheel, his master's orders in his willing ears +from time to time, gradually accelerated his rate of speed until by the +end of the first two hours he was carrying his party along at a pace +which Mrs. King had frequently condemned as one which would be to her +unbearable. Burns and King exchanged glances more than once as the car +flew past other travellers, and the good lady, talking happily with +Ellen or absorbed in some far-reaching view, took no note of the fact +that she was annihilating space with a smooth swiftness comparable only +to the flight of some big, strong-winged bird. + +"Over halfway there, and plenty of time for lunch," Burns announced. +"And here's the best roadside inn in the country. If it hadn't been for +our coming this way I should have suggested bringing our own hampers, +but I wanted you to have some of this little Englishman's brook trout +and hot scones." + +Mrs. King enjoyed that hot and delicious meal as she had seldom enjoyed +a luncheon anywhere. As she sat at the faultlessly served table, her +eyes travelling from the wide view at the window to the faces of her +companions, she grew more and more cheerful in manner, and was even +heard to laugh softly aloud now and then at one of Burns's gay quips, +turning to Ellen in appreciation of her husband's wit, or to Jordan +himself as he came back at his friend with a rejoinder worth hearing. + +"This is doing my mother a world of good," King said in Ellen's ear as +the party came out on a wide porch to rest for a half hour before taking +to the car again. "I don't know when I've seen her expand like this and +seem really to be forgetting her cares and sorrows." + +"It's a pleasure to watch her," Ellen agreed. "Red vowed this morning +that he meant to bring about that very thing, and he's succeeding much +better than I had dared to hope." + +"Who wouldn't be jolly in a party where Red was one? Did you ever see +the dear fellow so absolutely irresistible? Sometimes I think there's a +bit of hypnotism about Red, he gets us all so completely." + +"What are you two whispering about?" said a voice behind them, and they +turned to look into the brilliant hazel eyes both were thinking of at +the moment. + +"You," King answered promptly. + +"Rebelling against the autocracy of the Indian Chief?" + +"No. Prostrating ourselves before his bulky form. He's some Indian +to-day." + +"He will be before the day is over, I promise you. He'll call a council +around the campfire to-night, and plenty pipes will be smoked. Everybody +do as Big Chief says, eh?" + +"Sure thing, Geronimo; that's what we came for." + +"You don't know what you came for. Absolutely preposterous this thing +is--surgeon going to visit his case and bringing along a lot of people +who don't know a mononuclear leucocyte from an eosinophile cell." + +"Do you know a vortex filament from a diametral plane?" demanded King. + +Burns laughed. "Come, let's be off! I must spare half an hour to show +Mrs. King a certain view somewhat off the main line." + +The afternoon was gone before they could have believed it, detours +though there were several, as there usually are in a road-mending +season. As the car emerged from a long run through wooded country and +passed a certain landmark carefully watched for by Red Pepper, he spoke +to Aleck. + +"Run slowly now, please. And be ready to turn to the left at a point +that doesn't show much beforehand." + +They were proceeding through somewhat sparsely settled country, though +marked here and there by comfortable farmhouses of a more than +ordinarily attractive type--apparently homes of prosperous people with +an eye to appearances. Then quite suddenly the car, rounding a turn, +came into a different region, one of cultivated wildness, of studied +effects so cleverly disguised that they would seem to the unobservant +only the efforts of nature at her best. A long, heavily shaded avenue of +oaks, with high, untrimmed hedges of shrubbery on each side, curved +enticingly before them, and all at once, Burns, looking sharply ahead, +called, "There, by that big pine, Aleck--to the left." In a minute more +the car turned in at a point where a rough stone gateway marked the +entrance to nothing more extraordinary than a pleasant wood. + +"Patient lives in a hut in the forest?" King inquired with interest. +"Or a rich man's hunting lodge?" + +"You'll soon see." Burns's eyes were ahead; a slight smile touched his +lips. + +The car swept around curve after curve of the wood, came out upon the +shore of a small lake and, skirting it halfway round, plunged into a +grove of pines. Then, quite without warning, there showed beyond the +pines a long, white-plumed row of small trees of a sort unmistakable--in +May. Beside the row lay a garden, gay with all manner of spring flowers, +and farther, through the trees, began to gleam the long, low outlines of +a great house. + +"Stop just here, Aleck, for a minute," Burns requested, and the car came +to a standstill. Burns looked at Jordan King. + +"Ever see that row of white lilacs before, Jord?" he asked with +interest. + +King was staring at it, a strange expression of mingled perplexity and +astonishment upon his fine, dark face. After a minute he turned to +Burns. + +"What--when--where--" he stammered, and stopped, gazing again at the +lilac hedge and the box-bordered beds with their splashes of bright +colour. + +"Well, I don't know what, when, or where, if you don't," Burns returned. + +But evidently King did know, or it came to him at that instant, for he +set his lips in a certain peculiar way which his friend understood meant +an attempt at quick disguise of strong feeling. He gave his mother one +glance and sat back in his seat. Then he looked again at Burns. "What is +this, anyway?" he asked rather sternly. "The home of your patient, or a +show place you've stopped to let us look at?" + +"My patient's in the house up there. Drive on, Aleck, please. They'll be +expecting us at the back of the house, where the long porches are, and +where they're probably having afternoon tea at this minute." He glanced +at his watch. "Happy time to arrive, isn't it?" + +Ellen found herself experiencing a most extraordinary sensation of +excitement as the car rounded the drive and approached the porch, where +she could see a number of people gathered. The place was not more +imposing than many with which she was familiar, and if it had been the +home of one of the world's greatest there would have been nothing +disconcerting to her in the prospect. But something in her husband's +manner assured her that he had been preparing a surprise for them all, +and she had no means of guessing what it might be. The little hasty +sketch of lilac trees against a spring sky, though she had seen it, had +naturally made no such impression upon her as upon King, and she did +not even recall it now. + +The car rolled quietly up to the porch steps, and immediately a tall +figure sprang down them. "It's Gardner Coolidge, my old college friend, +Len," Burns said in his wife's ear. "Remember him?" The afternoon +sunlight shone upon the smooth, dark hair and thin, aristocratic face of +a man who spoke eagerly, his quick glance sweeping the occupants of the +car. + +"Mrs. King! This is a great pleasure, I assure you--a great pleasure. +Mrs. Burns--we are delighted. And this is your son, Mrs. King--welcome +to you, my dear sir! Red, no need to say we're glad to see you back. Let +me help you, Mrs. King. Don't tell me you wouldn't have known me; that +would be a blow. Alicia"--he turned to the graceful figure approaching +across the porch to meet the elder lady of the party as she came up the +steps upon the arm of the man who had taken her from the car--"Mrs. +King, this is my wife." + +Red Pepper Burns, laughing and shaking hands warmly with Alicia +Coolidge, was watching Mrs. Alexander King as, after the first look of +bewilderment, she cried out softly with pleasure at recognizing the son +of an old friend. + +"But it has all been kept secret from me," she was saying. "I had no +possible idea of where we were coming, and I am sure my son had not." +She turned to that son, but she could not get his attention, for the +reason that his astonished gaze was fastened upon a person who had at +that moment appeared in the doorway and paused there. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +RED'S DEAREST PATIENTS + + +Jordan King looked, and looked again, and it was a wonder he did not rub +his eyes to make sure he was fully awake. As he looked the figure in the +doorway came forward. It was that of a girl in a white serge coat and +skirt, with a smart little white hat upon her richly ruddy hair, and the +look, from head to foot, of one who had just returned to a place where +she belonged. And the next instant Anne Linton was greeting Ellen Burns +and coming up to be presented to Mrs. Alexander King. + +"This is my little sister, Mrs. King," said Gardner Coolidge, smiling, +and putting his arm about the white-serge-clad shoulders. "She is your +hostess, you know. Alicia and I are only making her a visit." + +"I am so glad you are here, Mrs. King," said a voice Jordan King well +remembered, and Anne Linton's eyes looked straight into those of her +oldest guest, whose own were puzzled. + +"I think," said Mrs. King, holding the firm young hand which she had +taken, "I have seen you before, my dear, though my memory--" + +"Yes, Mrs. King," the girl replied--and there was not the smallest +shadow of triumph discernible in her tone or look--"you have. I came to +see your son in the hospital, with Mrs. Burns, just before I left. It's +not strange you have forgotten me, for we went away almost at once. We +are so delighted to have you come to see us. Isn't it delightful that +you knew our mother so well at school?" + +Well, it came Jordan King's turn in the end, although Anne Linton, so +extraordinarily labelled "hostess" by her brother, discharged every duty +of greeting her other guests before she turned to him. Meanwhile he had +stood, frankly staring, hat in hand and growing colour on his cheek, +while his eyes seemed to grow darker and darker under his heavily marked +brows. When Anne turned to him he had no words for her, and hardly a +smile, though his good breeding came to his rescue and put him through +the customary forms of action, dazed though he yet was. He found himself +presented to other people on the porch, whom he recognized as +undoubtedly those whom he had met in the passing car at the time when he +was in doubt as to Anne's identity. Her aunt, uncle, and cousins they +proved to be, though the young man whom he remembered as being present +on that occasion was now happily absent. Jordan King found himself +completely reconciled to this at once. + +"How is our patient?" Burns said to Anne at the first opportunity. +"Shall I go up at once?" + +"Oh, please wait a minute, Doctor Burns; I want to go with you, and I +must see my guests having some tea first." + +There followed, for King, what seemed an interminable interval of time, +during which he was forced to sit beside one of Anne's girl cousins--and +a very pretty girl she was, too, only he didn't seem able to appreciate +it--drinking tea, and handing sugar, and doing all the proper things. In +the midst of this Anne vanished with Red Pepper at her heels, leaving +the tea table to Mrs. Coolidge. At this point, however, King found +himself glad to listen to Miss Stockton. + +"I don't suppose anybody in the world but Anne Linton Coolidge would +have thought of sending two hundred miles for a surgeon to operate on +her housekeeper," she was saying when his attention was arrested by her +words. "But she thinks such a lot of Timmy--Mrs. Timmins--she would pay +any sum to keep her in the world. She was Anne's nurse, you see, and of +course Anne is fond of her. And I'm sure we're glad she did send for +him, for it gave us the pleasure of meeting Doctor Burns, and of course +we understand now why she thought nobody else in the world could pull +Timmy through. He's such an interesting personality, don't you think so? +We're all crazy about him." + +"Oh, yes, everybody's crazy about him," King admitted readily. "And +certainly two hundred miles isn't far to send for a surgeon these days." + +"Of course not--only I don't suppose it's done every day for one's +housekeeper, do you? But nobody ever knows what Anne's going to +do--least of all now, when she's just back, after the most extraordinary +performance." She stopped, looking at him curiously. "I suppose you know +all about it--much more than we, in fact, since you met her when she was +in that hospital. Did you ever hear of a rich girl's doing such a thing +anyway? Going off to sell books for a whole year just because"--she +stopped again, and bit her lip, then went on quickly: "Everybody knows +about it, and you would be sure to hear it sooner or later. Doctor Burns +knows, anyhow, and--" + +"Please don't tell me anything I oughtn't to hear," Jordan's sense of +honour impelled him to say. He recognized the feminine type before him, +and though he longed to know all about everything he did not want to +know it in any way Anne would not like. + +But there was no stopping the fluffy-haired young person. "Really, +everybody knows; the countryside fairly rang with it a year ago. You +might even have read it in the papers, only you wouldn't remember. A +girl book agent killed herself in Anne's house here because Anne +wouldn't buy her book. Did you ever hear of anything so absurd as Anne's +thinking it was her fault? Of course the girl was insane, and Anne had +absolutely nothing to do with it. And then Anne took the girl's book and +went off to sell it herself--and find out, she said, how such things +could happen. I don't know whether she found out." Miss Stockton laughed +very charmingly. "All I know is we're tremendously thankful to have her +back. Nothing's the same with her away. We don't know if she'll stay, +though. Nobody can tell about Anne, ever." + +"Is this your home, too?" King managed to ask. His brain was whirling +with the shock of this astonishing revelation. He wanted to get off by +himself and think about it. + +"Oh, no, indeed, no such luck. We live across the lake in a much less +beautiful place, only of course we're here a great deal when Anne's +home. My mother would be a mother to Anne if Anne would let her, but +she's the most independent creature--prefers to live here with just +Timmy and old Campbell, the butler who's been with the family since +time began. Timmy's more than a housekeeper, of course. Anne's made +almost a real chaperon out of her, and she is very dignified and nice." + +King would have had the entire family history, he was sure, if a +diversion had not occurred in the nature of a general move to show the +guests to their rooms, with the appearance of servants, and the removal +of luggage. In his room presently, therefore, King had a chance to get +his thoughts together. One thing was becoming momentarily clear to him: +his being here was with Anne's permission--and she was willing to see +him; she had kept her promise. As for all the rest, he didn't care much. +And when he thought of the moment during which his mother had looked so +kindly into Anne's eyes, not recognizing her, he laughed aloud. Let Mrs. +King retreat from that position now if she wanted to. As for himself, he +was not at all sure that he cared a straw to have it thus so clearly +proved that Anne was what she had seemed to be. Had he not known it all +along? His heart sang with the thought that he had been ready to marry +her, no matter what her position in the world. + +And now he wondered how many hours it would be before he should have his +chance to see her alone, if for but five minutes. Well, at least he +could look at her. And that, as he descended the stairs with the +others, he found well worth doing. Anne and Gardner Coolidge were +meeting them at the foot, and the young hostess had changed her white +outing garb for a most enchanting other white, which showed her round +arms through soft net and lace and made her yet a new type of girl in +King's thought of her. + +She had a perfectly straightforward way of meeting his eyes, though her +own were bewildering even so, without any coquetry in her use of them. +She was not blushing and shy, she was self-possessed and radiant. King +could understand, as he looked at her now, how she had felt over that +affair of the tragedy suddenly precipitated into her life, and what +strength of character it must have taken to send her out from this +secluded and perfect home into a rough world, that she might find out +for herself "how such things could happen." And as he watched her, +playing hostess in this home of hers, looking after everybody's comfort +with that ease and charm which proclaims a lifetime of previous training +and custom, his heart grew fuller and fuller of pride and love and +longing. + +The dinner hour passed, a merry hour at a dignified table, served by the +old butler who made a rite of his service, his face never relaxing +though the laughter rang never so contagiously. Burns and Coolidge were +the life of the company, the latter seeming a different man from the +one who had come to consult his old chum as to the trouble in his life. +Mrs. Coolidge, quiet and very attractive in her reserved, fair beauty, +made an interesting foil to Ellen Burns, and the two, beside the rather +fussy aunt and cousins, seemed to belong together. + +"Anne, we must show Doctor Burns our plans for the cottage," Coolidge +said to his sister as they left the table. He turned to Ellen, walking +beside her. "She's almost persuaded us to build on a corner of her own +estate--at least a summer place, for a starter. You know Red prescribed +for us a cottage, and we haven't yet carried out his prescription But +this sister of mine, since she met him, has acquired the idea that any +prescription of his simply has to be filled, and she won't let Alicia +and me alone till we've done this thing. Shall we all walk along down +there? There'll be just about time before dark for you to see the site, +and the plans shall come later." + +The whole party trooped down the steps into the garden. King was a +clever engineer, but he could not do any engineering which seemed to +count in this affair. Never seeming to avoid him, Anne was never where +he could get three words alone with her. She devoted herself to his +mother, to Ellen, or to Burns himself, and none of these people gave him +any help. Not that he wanted them to. He bided his time, and meanwhile +he took some pleasure in showing his lady that he, too, could play his +part until it should suit her to give him his chance. + +But when, as the evening wore on, it began to look as if she were +deliberately trying to prevent any interview whatever, he grew unhappy. +And at last, the party having returned to the house and gathered in a +delightful old drawing-room, he took his fate in his hands. At a moment +when Anne stood beside Red Pepper looking over some photographs lying on +the grand piano, he came up behind them. + +"Miss Coolidge," he said, "I wonder if you would show me that lilac +hedge by moonlight." + +"I'm afraid there isn't any moon," she answered with a merry, +straightforward look. "It will be as dark as a pocket down by that +hedge, Mr. King. But I'll gladly show it to you to-morrow morning--as +early as you like. I'm a very early riser." + +"As early as six o'clock?" he asked eagerly. + +She nodded. "As early as that. It is a perfect time on a May morning." + +"And you won't go anywhere now?" + +"How can I?" she parried, smiling. "These are my guests." + +Burns glanced at his friend, his hazel eyes full of suppressed laughter. +"Better be contented with that, old fellow. That row of lilacs will be +very nice at six o'clock to-morrow morning. Mayn't I come, too, Miss +Coolidge?" + +"Of course you may." Her sparkling glance met his. Evidently they were +very good friends, and understood each other. + +"If he does," said King, in a sort of growl, "he'll have something to +settle with me." + +He went to bed in a peculiar frame of mind. Why had she wanted to waste +all these hours when at nine in the morning the party was to leave for +its return trip? Well, he supposed morning would come sometime, though +it seemed, at midnight, a long way off. + +"Want me to call you at five-thirty, Jord?" Burns had inquired of him at +parting. + +"No, thanks," he had replied. "I'll not miss it." + +"A fellow might lie awake so long thinking about it that he'd go off +into a sound sleep just before daylight, and sleep right through his +early morning appointment," urged his loyal friend. "Better let me--" + +"Oh, you go on to bed!" requested King irritably. + +"No gratitude to one who has brought all this to pass, eh?" + +"Heaps of it. But this evening has been rather a facer." + +"Not at all. There were a dozen times when you might have rushed in and +got a little quiet place all to yourself, with only the stars looking +on. Plenty of openings." + +"I didn't see 'em. You were always in the way." + +"I was! Well, I like that. Had to be ordinarily attentive to my hostess, +hadn't I? It wasn't for me to take shy little boys by the hand and lead +them up to the little girls they fancied." + +"I don't want to be led up by the hand, thank you. Good-night!" + + * * * * * + +King was up at daybreak, which in May comes reasonably early. Stealing +down through the quiet house, the windows of which seemed to be all wide +open to the morning air, he came out upon the porch and took the path to +the lilac hedge. Arrived there at only twenty minutes before the +appointed hour, he had so long a wait that he began to grow both +impatient and chagrined. At quarter-past six he was feeling very much +like stalking back to the house and retiring to his room, when the low +sound of a motor arrested him, and he wheeled, to discover a long, low, +gray car, of a type with which he was not familiar, sailing gracefully +around the long curve of the driveway toward him. A trim figure in gray, +with a small gray velvet hat pulled close over auburn hair, was at the +wheel, and a vivid face was smiling at him. But the air of the driver +as she drew up beside him was not at all sentimental, rather it was +businesslike. + +"I'm awfully sorry to be late," she said, "but I couldn't possibly help +it. I got up at four, to make a call I had to make and be back, but I +was detained. And even now I must be off again, without any lingering by +lilac hedges. What shall we do about it?" + +"I'll go with you." And King stepped into the car. + +"With or without an invitation?" Her eyes were laughing, though her lips +had sobered. + +"With or without. And you know you came back for me." + +"I came back for a basket of things I must get from the house. Also, of +course, to explain my detention." + +"Out selling books, I suppose?" he questioned, not caring much what he +said, now that he had her to himself. "You must make a great impression +as a book agent. If only you had tried that way in our town. And I--I +took you in my car under the pleasant impression that I was giving you a +treat--on that first trip, you know. By the second trip I had acquired a +sneaking suspicion that motoring wasn't such a novelty to you as I had +at first supposed." + +They had flown around the remaining curves and were at a rear door of +the house. Anne jumped out, was gone for ten minutes or so, and emerged +with a servant following with a great hamper. This was bestowed at +King's feet, and the car was off again, Anne driving with the ease of a +veteran. + +"You see," she explained, "late last evening I had news of the serious +illness of a girl friend of mine. I went to see her, but after I came +back I couldn't be easy about her, and so I got up quite early this +morning and went again. She was much better, precisely as Doctor Burns +had assured me she would be. By and by perhaps I shall learn to trust +him as absolutely as all the rest of you do." + +"Burns! You don't mean to say you had him out to see a case last +night--after--" + +She nodded, and her profile, under the snug gray hat, was a little like +that of a handsome and somewhat mischievous but strong-willed boy. "Was +that so dreadful of me--as a hostess? I admit that a doctor ought to be +allowed to rest when he is away from home, but I knew that he was just +back from a long voyage and was feeling fit as a fiddle, as he himself +said. And there is really no very competent man in the town where my +friend is ill; it was such a wonderful chance for her to have great +skill at her service. And such skill! Oh, how he went to work for her! +It made one feel at once that something was being done, where before +people had merely tried to do things." + +King was making rapid calculation. At the end of it, "Would you mind +telling me whether you have had any sleep at all?" he begged. + +She turned her face toward him for an instant. "Do I look so haggard and +wan?" she queried with a quick glance. "Yes, I had a good two hours. And +I'm so happy now to know that Estelle is sleeping quietly that it's much +better than to have slept myself." + +"Do you do this sort of thing often?" + +"Not just such spectacular night work, but I do try to see that a little +is done to look after a few people who have had a terribly hard time of +it. But this is all--or mostly--since I came back from my year away. I +learned just a few things during that year, you know." + +"Your cousin--do you mind?--gave me just a bit of an idea why you went," +he ventured. + +"Oh, Leila Stockton." Her lips took on an amused curl. "Of course Leila +would. She--chatters. But she's a dear girl; it's just that she can't +easily get a new point of view." + +He pressed her with his questions, for his discernment told him that it +was of no use, while they were flying along the road at this pace, with +a hamper at their feet--or at his feet, crowding him rather +uncomfortably and forcing him to sit with cramped legs--no use for him +to talk of the subject uppermost in his anxious mind. So he got from +her, as well as he could, the story of the year, and presently had her +telling him eagerly of the people she had met, and the progress she had +made in the study of human beings. It was really an engrossing tale, +quietly as she told it, and many as were the details he saw that she +kept back. + +"I found out one thing very early," she said. "I knew that I could never +come back and live as I had lived before, with no thought of any one but +myself." + +"I don't believe you had ever done that." + +"I had--I had, if ever any one did. I went away to school in Paris for +two years; I wouldn't go to college--how I wish I had! I was the gayest, +most thoughtless girl you ever knew until--the thing happened that sent +my world spinning upside down. Why, Mr. King, I was so selfish and so +thoughtless that I could turn that poor girl away from my door with a +careless denial, and never see that she was desperate--that it wanted +only one more such turning away to make her do the thing she did." + +He saw her press her lips together, her eyes fixed on the road ahead, +and he saw the beautiful brows contract, as if the memory still were +too keen for her to bear calmly. + +"You have certainly atoned a hundred times over," he said gently, "for +any carelessness in the past. How could you know how she was feeling? +And she was insane, Miss Stockton said." + +"No more insane than I am now--simply desperate with weariness and +failure. And I should have seen; I did see. I just--didn't care. I was +busy trying on a box of new frocks from a French dressmaker, frocks of +silk and lace--of silk and lace, Jordan King, while she hadn't clothes +enough to keep her warm! And I couldn't spare the time to look at the +girl's book! Well, I learned what it was to have people turn me from +their doors--I, with plenty of money at my command, no matter how I +elected to dress cheaply and go to cheap boarding places, and--insist on +cheap beds at hospitals." Her tone was full of scorn. "After all, did I +ever really suffer anything of what she suffered? Never, for always I +knew that at any minute I could turn from a poor girl into a rich one, +throw my book in the faces of those who refused to buy it, and telephone +my anxious family. They did come on and try to get me away--once. I went +with them--for the day. It was the day you met me. And always there was +the interest of the adventure. It was an adventure, you know, a big +one." + +"I should say it was. And when you were at the hospital--" + +"Accepting expensive rooms and free medical attendance--oh, wasn't I a +fraud? How I felt it I can never tell you. But I could--and did--send +back Doctor Burns a draft in part payment, though I thought he would +never imagine where it came from. He did, though. What do you suppose he +told me last night when we were driving home?--this morning it was, of +course." + +"I can't guess," King admitted, suffering a distinct and poignant pang +of jealousy at thought of Red Pepper Burns driving through the night +with this girl, on an errand of mercy though it had been. + +"He told me," she said slowly, "that he learned all about me while I was +in the hospital. One night, when I was at the worst, he sent Miss Arden +out for a rest and sat beside me himself. And in my foolish, delirious +wanderings I gave him the whole story, or enough of it so that he pieced +out the rest. And he never told a soul, not even his wife; wasn't that +wonderful of him? And treated me exactly the same as if he didn't +practically know I wasn't what I seemed. You see, I wasn't far enough +away from that poor girl's suicide, when I was so ill last year, but +that it was always in my mind. Even yet I dream of it at times." + +They were entering a large manufacturing town, the streets in the early +morning full of factory operatives on their way to work, dinner-pails in +hands and shawls over heads. Anne drove carefully, often throwing a +smile at a group of children or slowing down more than the law decreed +to avoid making some weary-faced woman hurry. And when at length she +drew up before a dingy brick tenement house, of a type the most +unpromising, King discovered that her "friend" was one of these very +people. + +He carried the hamper up two flights of ramshackle stairs and set it +inside the door she indicated. Then he unwillingly withdrew to the car, +where he sat waiting--and wondering. It was not long he had to wait, in +point of time, but his impatience was growing upon him. All this was +very well, and threw interesting lights upon a girl's character, but--it +would be nine o'clock all too soon. To be sure, though Red Pepper bore +him away, he knew the road back--he could come back as soon as he +pleased, with nobody to set hours of departure for him. But he did not +mean to go away this first time without the thing he wanted, if it was +to be his. + +She came running downstairs, face aglow with relief and pleasure, and +sent the car smoothly away. And now it was that King discovered how a +girl may fence and parry, so that a man may not successfully introduce +the subject he is burning to speak of, without riding roughshod over her +objection. And presently he gave it up, biding his time. He sat silent +while she talked, and then finally, when she too grew silent, he let the +minutes slip by without another word. Thus it was that they drew up at +the house, still speechless concerning the great issue between them. + +It was only a little past seven; nobody was in sight except a maid +servant, who slipped discreetly away. King took one look into a small +room at the right of the hall, a sort of small den or office it seemed +to be. Then he turned to Anne and put out his hand. "Will you come in +here, please?" he requested. + +She looked at him for a moment without giving him her hand, then +preceded him into the room. There was a heavy curtain of dull blue silk +hanging by the door frame, and King noiselessly drew this across. Then +he turned and confronted the girl. She had drawn off her motoring +gloves, but made no motion to remove either the rough gray coat in which +she had been driving or the small gray velvet hat drawn smoothly down +over her curls with a clever air of its own. Altogether she looked not +in the least like a hostess, but very like a traveller who has only +paused for a brief stop on a journey to be immediately continued. + +He stood there watching her for a minute, himself a challenging figure +with his dark, bright face, his fine young height, his air of--quite +suddenly--commanding the situation. And he was between the girl and the +door. The two pairs of eyes looked straight into each other. + +"Well?" he said. + +"Well?" said Anne Linton Coolidge in return. + +"Did you expect me to wait any longer?" + +"I was afraid you might come and go--and never say so much as 'Well?'" +said she. + +This was more than mortal man could bear--and there was no more waiting +done by anybody. When Jordan King had--temporarily--done satisfying the +hunger of his lips and arms, he spoke again, looking down searchingly at +a face into which he had brought plenty of splendid colour. + +"If I had found you in that poor place I thought I should, it would have +been just the same," he said. + +"I really believe it would," admitted Anne. + + * * * * * + +Half an hour afterward, emerging from the small room which had held such +a big experience, the pair discovered Red Pepper Burns just descending +the stairway. He scrutinized their faces sharply, then advanced upon +them. They met him halfway. He gravely took Anne's hand and set his +fingers on her pulse. + +"Too rapid," he said with a shake of the head. "Altogether too rapid. +You have been undergoing much excitement--and so early in the morning, +too. As your physician I must caution you against such untimely hours." + +He felt of King's wrist, and again he shook his head. "Worse and worse," +he announced. "Not only rapid, but bounding. The heart is plainly +overworked. These cases are contagious. One acts upon the other--no +doubt of it--no doubt at all. I would suggest--" + +He found both his arms grasped by Jordan King's strong hands, and he +allowed himself to be held tightly by that happy young man. "Give us +your best wishes!" demanded his captor. + +"Why, you've had those from the first. I saw this coming before either +of you," Burns replied. + +"Not before I did," asserted King. + +"Not before I did," declared Anne. + +Then the two looked at each other, and Burns, smiling at them, his hazel +eyes very bright, requested to be restored the use of his arms. This +being conceded, he laid those arms about the shoulders before him and +drew the two young people close within them. + +"You two are the most satisfactory and the dearest patients I've ever +had," declared Red Pepper Burns. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RED PEPPER'S PATIENTS*** + + +******* This file should be named 16115.txt or 16115.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/6/1/1/16115 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: +https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/16115.zip b/16115.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..31bcb00 --- /dev/null +++ b/16115.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5ee193c --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #16115 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16115) |
