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diff --git a/old/rpbrn10.txt b/old/rpbrn10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5198e25 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/rpbrn10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5928 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Etext Red Pepper Burns, by Grace S. Richmond + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + +*It must legally be the first thing seen when opening the book.* +In fact, our legal advisors said we can't even change margins. + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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Richmond + + + + +CONTENTS + + + + +CHAPTER + +I. IN WHICH HE VOWS A VOW + +II. IN WHICH HE CREATES A CIRCUS + +III. IN WHICH HE ASSUMES A RESPONSIBILITY + +IV. IN WHICH HE MAKES A CONCESSION + +V. IN WHICH HE IS ROUGH ON A FRIEND + +VI. IN WHICH HE PRESCRIBES FOR HIMSELF + +VII. IN WHICH HE CONTINUES TO SAW WOOD + +VIII. IN WHICH HE IS UNREASONABLY PREOCCUPIED + +IX. IN WHICH HE SUFFERS A DEFEAT + +X. IN WHICH HE PROVES HIMSELF A HOST + +XI. IN WHICH HE GETS EVEN WITH HIMSELF + +XII. IN WHICH HE HAS HIS OWN WAY + +XIII. IN WHICH HE MAKES NO EVENING CALL + +XIV. IN WHICH HE DEFIES SUPERSTITION + + + + +CHAPTER I + +IN WHICH HE VOWS A VOW + + +"There comes the Green Imp " + +"How can you tell?" + +"Don't you hear? Red's coming in on five cylinders for all he +can get out of 'em. Anybody else would stop and fix up. He's +in too much of a hurry - as usual." + +The Green Imp tore past the porch where Burns's neighbours +waved arms of greeting which he failed to see, for he did not +turn his head. The car went round the curve of the driveway +at perilous speed, and only the fact that from road to old red +barn was a good twenty rods made it seem possible that the +Green Imp could come to a standstill in time to prevent its +banging into the rear wall of the barn. + +Two minutes later Burns ran by the Chesters' porch on his way +to his own. Chester hailed him. + +"What's your everlasting hurry, Red? Come up and sit down and +cool off." + +"Not now," called back a voice curtly, out of the June +twilight. The big figure ran on and disappeared into the +small house, the door slamming shut behind it. + +"Red's in a temper. Tell by the sound of his voice. + +"Is he ever in anything except a temper?" inquired a guest of +the Chesters. Arthur Chester turned on her. + +"Show's you don't know him much, Pauline. He's the owner of +the fiercest good disposition ever heard of. He's the +pepperest proposition of an angel this earth has ever seen. +He's a red-headed, sharp-tongued brute of a saint - " + +"Why, Arthur Chester!" + +"He's a pot of mustard that's clear balm - if you don't mind +getting stung when it's applied." + +"Well, of all the - " + +"I'm going over to get something for this abominable headache +- and, incidentally, to find out what's the row. He's +probably lost a patient - it always goes to his brain like +that. When he abuses his beloved engine that way it's because +some other machinery has stopped somewhere." + +"If he's lost a patient you'd better let him alone, dear," +advised his wife, Winifred. + +"No - he needs to get his mind off it, on me. I can fix up a +few symptoms for him." + +"He'll see through you," called Mrs. Chester softly, after +him. + +"No doubt of that. But it may divert him, just the same." + +Chester made his way across the lawn and in at the side door +which led to the dimly lighted village offices of Redfield +Pepper Burns, physician and surgeon. Not that the +gilt-lettered sign on the glass of the office door read that +way. "R. F. Burns, M.D." was the brief inscription above the +table of "office hours," and the owner of the name invariably +so curtailed it. But among his friends the full name had +inevitably been turned into the nickname, for the big, +red-haired, quick-tempered, warm-hearted fellow was "Red +Pepper Burns" as irresistibly to them as he had been, a decade +earlier, to his classmates in college. + +As Chester went in at the door a figure arose slowly from its +position - flung full length, face downward, on a couch in the +shadowy inner office and came into view. + +"Toothache? Dentist down the street," said a blurred voice +unsympathetically. + +Chester laughed. "Oh, come, Red," said he. "Give me some of +that headache dope. I'm all out." + +"Glad to hear it. You don't get any more from me." + +"Why not? I've got a sure-enough headache - I didn't come +over to quiz you. The blamed thing whizzes like a buzz saw." + +"Can't help it. Go soak it." + +Chester advanced. "I'll get the powders myself, then. I know +the bottle." + +A substantial barrier interposed. "No, you don't. You've +taken up six ounces of that stuff do seven days. You quit +to-night." + +"Look here, Red, what's the use of taking it out on me like +that, if you are mad at something? If your head - " + +"I wish it did ache - like ten thousand furies. It might take +some of the pressure off somewhere else," growled R. P. Burns. +He shut the door of the inner office hard behind him. + +"I thought so," declared Arthur Chester, suddenly forgetting +about his headache in his anxiety to know the explanation of +the five cylinders. It was a small suburban town in which +they lived, and if something had gone wrong it was a matter of +common interest. "Can you tell me about it ?" he asked - a +little diffidently, for none knew better than he that things +could not always be told, and that no lips were locked tighter +than Red Pepper's when the secret was not his to tell. + +"Engine's on the blink. Got to go out and fix it," was the +unpromising reply. Burns picked up a sparkplug from the +office desk as he spoke. + +"Had your dinner?" + +"Don't want it." + +"Shall I go out with you?" + +The answer was an unintelligible grunt. As Chester was about +to follow his friend out - for there could be no doubt that +Red Pepper Burns was his friend in spite of this somewhat +surly, though by no means unusual, treatment - another door +opened tentatively, and a head was cautiously inserted. + +"Your dinner's ready, Doctor Burns," said a doubtful voice. + +Burns turned. "Leave a pitcher of milk on the table for me, +Cynthia," he said in a gentler voice than Chester had yet +heard from him tonight, crisp though it was. "Nothing else." + +Chester, catching a glimpse of a brightly lighted dining-room +and a table lavishly spread, undertook to remonstrate. He had +seen the housekeeper's disappointed face, also. But Burns cut +him short. + +"Come along - if you must," said he, and stalked out into the +night. + +For an hour, in the light from one of the Green Imp's lamps, +Chester sat on an overturned box and watched Burns work. He +worked savagely, as if applying surgical measures to a mood as +well as to a machine. He worked like a skilled mechanic as +well; every turn of a nut, every polish of a thread meaning +definite means to an end. The night was hot and he had thrown +off coat and collar and rolled his sleeves high, so a brawny +arm gleamed in the bright lamplight, and the open shirt +exposed a powerful neck. Chester, who was of slighter build +and not as tall as he would have liked to be, watched +enviously. + +"Whatever goes wrong with your affairs, Red," he observed +suddenly, breaking a long interval during which the engine had +been made to throb and whirl like the "ten thousand furies" to +whom its engineer had lately made allusion, "you have the +tremendous asset of a magnificent body to fall back on for +comfort." + +With a movement of the hand Burns stopped his engine, now +running quietly, and stood up straight. He threw out one bare +arm, grimy and oily with his labours. "Two hours ago," said +he in a voice now controlled and solemn, "if by cutting off +that right arm at the shoulder I could have saved a human life +I'd have done it." + +"And now," retorted Chester quickly, "now, two hours after - +would you cut it off now?" + +Red Pepper looked at him. The arm dropped. "No," said he, "I +wouldn't. Not for a dozen lives like that. I'm not heroic, +after all - only hot and cold by jumps, like a thermometer. +But I ache all over, just the same. She runs like a bird now. +Jump in - we'll take a spin and try her out on the road. I +may need her before midnight." + +Nothing loth, for he knew the Green Imp and her driver and had +had many a swift run on a moonlight night before in the same +company, Chester took the slim roadster's other seat, watching +the long green hood point the way down the driveway, past the +porch where the women, in white gowns showing coolly in the +light from the arc lamp at the corner of the street, called a +goodbye. + +"Back - some time," replied Chester's voice, rising above the +low purr of the engine with a note of satisfaction in it. The +figure beside him, still in open, white shirt, with bare arms +and uncovered, thick thatch of red hair, did not turn its +head. + +"Arthur's never so happy as when he's out with Red in the +Green Imp," Winifred said to her guest as the roadster shot +away under the elms which drooped beneath the arc light. + +"Doctor Burns is certainly the oddest man I ever saw," replied +the guest, swinging idly in the hammock and watching the car +out of sight down the long vista of the village street. "He +hasn't given me one real good look yet. I suppose if I were a +patient he would favour me with an all-seeing gaze out of +those Irish-Scotch barbarian eyes of his, but as it is" - her +voice was slightly petulant - "I believe I shall have to do as +Arthur has: make up some symptoms and go over to his office." + +"If you do you'll get precisely the same treatment I presume +Arthur had." Mrs. Chester laughed as she spoke. "I doubt very +much whether he comes back with any headache medicine." + +"But he got a moonlight ride in that beauty of a car," the +guest declared enviously. "That treatment would suit me +wonderfully well, whatever was the matter." + +"Would you have gone with him in his shirt-sleeves? He's +plainly in a shirt-sleeve mood to-night." + +"I think a drive in the moonlight with a `brute of a saint' in +shirt-sleeves, with arms like those, might be interesting," +mused the guest, indicating invisible patterns on the porch +with the toe of a white slipper. + +"He would probably talk cars and engines every mile in the +most matter-of-fact way," Winifred Chester assured her. "No +woman yet has ever been able, as far as this town knows, to +strike a spark of romance out of Red Pepper Burns." + +"Yet he has red hair," murmured the guest to herself, and +continued to look thoughtfully down the street along which the +Green Imp had shot out toward the open! country beyond. + +Out in that open country, miles away, the car running with +that exquisite precision of rotating cylinder explosions which +is music to the trained ear of the mechanic at the wheel, the +two men sat silent. The pace of the Green Imp was one to cut +off speech, for the road wets straight and empty, stretching +like a white ribbon under the stars, with now and then a band +of midnight shade crossing it where arching tree-tops met the +course which invites an open throttle and the intent eye which +goes with it. + +Suddenly the car struck aside from the straightaway and with +open cut-out roared up a steep hill by means of which a narrow +road led off toward a part of the country not often selected +by motorists for pleasure spins. Chester recognized that his +companion had a purpose beyond that of "trying out" his +engine, unless, indeed, the tough and rocky grade were a test. +But Burns was still silent, and the other man applied himself +to holding on. A mile up the road the car came to an abrupt +standstill before a tiny house. + +"Going to make a call, after all?" was on Chester's lips, but +the sight of something, showing white beside the door in the +lamplight which streamed out upon a small, decrepit porch, +drove back the words. + +Burns left a silent engine and strode up the straggling path +with the light tread of the heavy man whose muscles are under +his control. He walked in at the open door without knocking, +and Chester caught the sharp sound of a woman's voice at a +tension, saying: "Oh, Doctor!" + +It seemed to him an hour, though by his watch it was but nine +minutes, that he sat watching the little flimsy streamer of +white flutter to and fro in the lamplight, his heart beating +heavily, as a father's will at sight of the sign of some other +man's loss. + +At the end of those interminable nine minutes Burns was back +again in the car. He turned the Green Imp about as quietly as +if she were a cat stealing out of the yard, and sent her down +the rocky road at her slowest speed. At the bottom of the +hill he broke the long silence. + +'Couldn't have slept an hour if I hadn't come back," he said +in a low tone. "Back and apologized for being a brute. It's +eased me up a bit I think it's eased her, too, poor soul." + +"Then it wasn't losing the case " Chester began doubtfully. +He was never sure just when it was safe to ask Red Pepper +questions, but he thought it seemed safer than usual now. + +"No, it wasn't losing the case, though that was bad enough. +It was losing my infernal hair-trigger of a temper that's been +cutting in like a knife. I had the boy where he ought to get +well if they followed my precautions a thousand times +repeated. This morning his heart was a whole lot stronger; it +only needed time. Tonight his mother let him sit up - in +spite of all I'd threatened her with if she did. He went out +like a snuffed candle. When I saw it I was so angry with her +I" - he thrust up one hand and ran it through his thick locks +with a gesture of savagery - "I let loose on her - poor soul +with her heart already broken. He was the only boy - of +course, - I ought to have been shot on the spot." + +He sent the car flying down the road. Chester could think of +nothing to say. He could imagine the sort of apology Red had +given the boy's mother - one to make her forgive and adore +him. No doubt it had "eased her." It must have been a hard +thing for R. P. Burns, M.D., to do. Suddenly recalling this +he said so, and added a word of admiration. Burns turned on +him. + +"Boy," he said, "I'm the toughest case on my list. I'm a +chronic patient. Just as I think I have myself in hand I +suffer a relapse. I break out in a new place. Of all men who +need self-control, it's a surgeon needs it most. Sometimes, +I'm in too much of a temper to operate - just because a nurse +has failed to provide the right sutures. Every red hair on my +head stands up like a porcupine's quills - my hand isn't +steady I can't trust my own judgment till I've cooled down. +There's only one hope for me " + +He broke off abruptly, and the Green Imp accelerated her pace +as they came to the long, straight road home. Until they +reached the turn under the elms which led to the town, he left +the sentence unfinished, while Chester waited. Chester felt +it would be worth waiting for - that which Red Pepper might +say next. When it came it surprised him - it even gave him a +strange thrill coming from Red Pepper. + +"I've put my case into the only competent hands," said Burns +slowly and quite simply. "I've promised my Maker I'll never +insult His name again." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +IN WHICH HE CREATES A CIRCUS + + +"Doctor Burns - " + +"Yes, Miss Mathewson." + +"The long-distance telephone, please." + +Burns excused himself to the last patient of the evening +series, and shut himself in with the long-distance. When he +came out he was looking at his watch. From its face he turned +to that of his office nurse - the one hardly less businesslike +in expression than the other. + +"Miss Mathewson, my aunt telephones that my father and mother +are both sick, each anxious to distraction about the other, +she about them both, and under the weather herself. If you +and I can catch the ten-fifteen to-night we can be there by +two, and by leaving there at four we can be back here in time +for the morning's operations. If they need you I'll leave you +there for a day or two - by your leave. We'll take the Green +Imp into the city - the ten-fifteen doesn't stop here. Then +it'll be at the hospital when we want it in the morning. +You've twenty minutes to get ready." + +"Very well, Doctor Burns." + +The office bell rang. Burns fled toward the inner office. +Miss Mathewson discovered the guest of the Chesters on the +doorstep - all in white, with a face which usually stimulated +interest wherever it was seen. + +"May I see Doctor Burns just a minute - for Mr. Chester?" The +caller took her cue cleverly from Miss Mathewson's face, which +at the moment expressed schedules and engagements thick as +blackberries in August. Burns, just closing the inner door, +caught Chester's name. He pulled off his white office coat, +slid into his gray tweed one, and opened the door. + +"What can I do for Mr. Chester - in three minutes?" he +inquired, coming forward. Miss Mathewson, aware of the +shortness of time, vanished. + +"Give me something for his headache, please," replied the +young person in white promptly. Schedules and engagements +were in R. P. Burns's eyes also; they looked at her without +appearing to see her at all. To this she was not accustomed +and it displeased her. + +"Was it too severe for him to come himself?" + +"Much too severe. He has gone to bed with it." + +"Mrs. Chester closely attending him?" + +"Certainly - or I shouldn't be here." The eyes of the +Chesters' guest sparkled. Something about the cool tone of +this question displeased her still more. + +"Tell him to get up and go out and walk a mile, breathing deep +all the way." + +"No medicine?" + +"Not a grain. He ought to know better than to ask." + +"He does, I think. He suggested that possibly if I asked - +But I see for myself how that wouldn't make the slightest +difference." + +"I'm glad your perceptions are so acute," replied Burns +gravely. + +"Are the three minutes up?" asked the caller. + +He looked at his watch. "I think not quite. Is there +anything of importance to fill the one remaining?" + +"Nothing whatever - except to mention your fee." The guest +receded gracefully from the door. + +"If the patient will follow directions I'll ask no fee. If he +doesn't I'll exact one when I see him again. Forgive my +haste, Miss - Halstead?" + +"Hempstead," corrected the caller crisply. "Don't mention it, +Doctor - Brown. Good night." + +The Chesters' guest lingered on the porch before going in to +report the failure of her mission. She was still lingering +there when the Green Imp, carrying no open-shirted mechanic, +but a properly clothed professional gentleman and a severely +dressed professional lady, whirled away down the drive. + +"He really was going somewhere in a hurry, then," admitted the +guest. "In which case I can't be quite so offended. I wonder +if that nurse enjoys her trips with him - when his mouth +doesn't happen to be shut like a steel trap." + +If she could have seen the pair on the train which presently +bore them flying away across the state, she would hardly have +envied either of them. Between abstraction on the one side +and reserve an the other, they exchanged less conversation +than two strangers might have done. When Miss Mathewson's +eyes drooped with weariness her companion made her as +comfortable as he could and bade her rest. His own eyes were +untouched by slumber: he stared straight before him or out +into the night, seeing nothing but a white farmhouse far +ahead, where his anxious thoughts were waiting for his body to +catch up. + +"Are they much sick, Zeke?." + +"Wal, I dunno hardly, Red. - You goin' to drive? They're +pretty lively, them blacks. Ain't used to comin' to the +station at two o'clock in the mornin'. Your ma's been +worryin' about your pa for a consid'able spell, and now that +she's took down so severe herself he's gone to pieces some. +Miss Ellen'll be glad to see you." + +The blacks covered the mile from the station as they had never +covered it before, and Burns was in the house five minutes +before they had expected him. + +"Mother, here's your big boy. - Dad, here I am - here's Red. +Bless your hearts -you wanted me, didn't you?" + +They could hardly tell him how they had wanted him, but he saw +it in their faces. + +"I've got to take the four o'clock back - worse luck! - for +some operations I can't postpone. But between now and then +I'm going to look you over and set you straight, and I'll be +back again in two days if you need me. Now for it. Mother +first. Come here, Aunt Ellen, and tell me all about her." + +R. P. Burns, M.D., had never been quicker nor more thorough at +examination of a pair of patients than with these. He went +straight at them both, each in the presence of the other, Miss +Mathewson capably assisting. With his most professional air +he asked his questions, applied his trained senses to the +searching tests made of special organs, and gave directions +for future treatment. Then he sat back and looked at them. + +"Do I appear worried about her, Dad?" + +"Why, you don't seem to, Red." + +"Miss Mathewson, should you gather from my appearance that I +am consumed with anxiety?" + +"I think you seem very much relieved, Doctor Burns." + +"Mother, as you look at Dad over on the couch there, does he +strike you as appearing like a frightfully sick man?" + +Mrs. Burns smiled faintly in the direction of the couch, but +her eyes came immediately back to her son's. "He seems a good +deal better since you came, Redfield." + +"There's not a thing the matter with either of you except what +can be fixed up in a week. You've got scared to death about +each other, and that's pulled you both down. What you need +more than anything else is to go to a circus - and, by George! +- Since I didn't observe any tents in the darkness as we +drove along, you shall have one come to you. Look here! Did +you know I'd kept up my old athletic stunts these nine years +since I left college?" + +He pulled off his coat, waistcoat, collar, shoes, rolled his +shirt-sleeves as high as they would go, and turned a series of +handsprings across the wide room. Then he stood on his head; +he balanced chairs on his chin; he seized his father's hickory +stick and went through a set of military evolutions. Then he +put on his shoes, eyeing his patients with satisfaction. His +mother had lifted her head to watch him, and Miss Mathewson +had tucked an extra pillow under it. His father had drawn +himself up to a half-sitting posture and was regarding his son +with pride. + +"I never thought so well of those doings before," he was +saying. "If they've kept you as supple as a willow, in spite +of your weight, I should say you'd better keep 'em up." + +"You bet I will! - See here, Aunt Ellen - you used to play the +`Irish Washerwoman: Mind playing it now? Miss Mathewson and I +are going to do a cakewalk." + +He glanced, laughing, at his office nurse. She was staring at +him wide-eyed. He threw back his head, showing a splendid +array of white teeth as he roared at her expression. + +"Forget `Doctor Burns,' please," said he, in answer to the +expression. "He's discharged this case as not serious enough +for him, and left it to Red Pepper to administer a few gentle +stimulants on the quack order. Come! You can do a cake walk! +Forget you're a graduate of any training school but the +vaudeville show!" + +He caught her hand. Flushing so that her plain face became +almost pretty, she yielded - for the hand was insistent. Miss +Ellen leaned bewildered against the door which led to the +sitting-room where the old piano stood. Her nephew looked at +her again, with the eyes which the Chesters' guest had +somewhat incoherently described as "Irish-Scotch-barbarian." +He said, "Please, Aunt Ellen, there's a good fellow," at which +Mr. Burns, Senior, chuckled under his breath; for anything +less like that of a "good fellow" was never seen than Sister +Ellen's prim little personality. Miss Ellen went protestingly +to the piano. Was it right, her manner said, to be performing +in this idiotic manner at this unholy hour of three o'clock in +the morning - in a sick-room? + +It mattered little whether Miss Mathewson could or could not +dance the "Irish Washerwoman," or any other antic dance +improvised to that live air; she had only to yield herself to +Red Pepper Burns's hands and steps, and let him disport +himself around her. A most startlingly hilarious performance +was immediately and effectively produced. At the height of +it, a door across the sitting-room, which commanded a strip of +the bedroom beyond, opened cautiously and Zeke Crandall's eye +glued itself to the aperture, an eye astonished beyond belief. + +"If that there Red ain't a-cuttin' up jest exactly as he used +to when he was a boy - and his pa and ma sick a-bed! If 'twas +anybody but Red I'd say he was crazy." + +Then he caught the sound of a laugh from lips he had not heard +laugh like that for a year - a chuckling, delighted laugh, +only slightly asthmatic and wholly unrestrained. He began to +laugh himself. + +"If folks round here could see Red Burns now they'd never +believe the stories about his gettin' to be such a darned +successful man at his business," he reflected. "Of all the +goin's on! Look at him now! An' that nurse! An' Miss Ellen +a-playin' for 'em! Oh, my eye!" + +Songs followed - college songs, popular airs, opera bits - all +delivered in' a resounding barytone and accompanied by +thumping chords improvised by the performer. Out through the +open windows they floated, and one astonished villages driving +by to take the early train caught the exultant strains: + + "Oh, see dat watermillion a-smilin' fro' de fence, + How I wish dat watermillion it was mine. + Oh, de white folks must be foolish, + Dey need a heap of sense, + Or dye'd nebber leave it dar upon de vine! + Oh, de ham-bone am sweet, + An' de bacon am good, + An' de 'possum fat am berry, berry fine; + But gib me, yes, gib me, + Oh, how I wish you would, + Dat watermillion growin' on de vine!" + +Before they knew it the early morning light was creeping in at +the small-paned windows. Burns consulted his watch. + +"If you'll give us a cup of coffee, Aunt Ellen, we'll be off +in fifteen minutes. Miss Mathewson - his glance mirthfully +surveyed her - "Aunt Ellen will take you upstairs and give you +a chance to put that magnificent brown hair into a condition +where it will not shock the natives at the station. As for +mine - " + +When Aunt Ellen and Miss Mathewson, each in her own way +feeling as if she had passed through an extraordinary +experience likely never to occur again, had hurried away, +Burns applied himself to a process of reconstruction. When +every rebellious red hair had been reduced to its usual order +and his thick locks lay with the little wave in them as his +mother had begun to brush them years ago; when collar and +cravat rose sedately above the gray tweed coat, and a fresh, +fine handkerchief had replaced the dingy one which had been +through every manner of exercise in the "circus," Burns drew +up a chair and faced his patients with the keen, professional +gaze which told him whether or not his night's work had been +good therapeutics. + +"When I've gone you're to have breakfast, and I think you'll +both eat it," he said, smiling at them, his eyes bright with +affection and contentment. "Then you're to compose yourselves +for sleep, and I think you'll both sleep. To-morrow Dad's to +be out on the porch - all June is out there, and the roses are +in full bloom. Day after to-morrow Mother'll be there, too, +in the hammock. As soon as these cases I operate on this +morning are out of danger I'll be down again for a whole day. +I'll keep the time clear." + +"I'm afraid," said his father, looking suddenly anxious for a +new cause, "your being up all night won't make your hand any +steadier for those operations, Red." + +"On the contrary, as a matter of fact, Dad, it'll be a lot +steadier just because of my being up all night, assuring +myself that there's nothing serious the matter with you and +Mother, except the need of a bit of jollying by your boy - +which you've certainly had right off the reel, eh? Aunt Ellen +thinks yet I've probably killed you. Are you the worse for +it, Mother? Give it to me straight, now!" + +He bent over her, his fingers on her delicate wrist. She +smiled up into his eyes. "Redfield!" she murmured. "As if I +could ever be the worse for having you come home!" + +He dropped on his knees beside the bed, looking at her with +the eyes of the boy she had borne. "Bless me, Mother," he +said unsteadily, all the fun gone out of his face. "I - need +it - to keep decent." + +The last three words were under his breath, but she heard the +others and laid her hand on the red head with a tremulous soft +word or two which lie could barely catch. + +In a minute he had risen, his cheek flushed high, and was +gripping his father's hand. "You, too, Dad," he begged. "I'm +only Red this morning - going back into the world." + +His father's hand and voice shook as he administered the +little ceremony, used only once before in his son's life - +when at fourteen he first went away to school. Few grown men +would have asked for it again, he felt that. Coming from Red +he was sure the request meant more than they could know. + +Then the professional gentleman whom the world knew - the +world which was not acquainted with Red Pepper Burns - and the +professional lady who was his assistant went decorously away +into the early June morning. Zeke was grinning to himself as +he saw them step aboard the train. + +"Looks mighty fine in them clipper-built city clothes, Red +does," he reflected. "If that there young woman chose to give +him away, now but I kind of guess she won't - under the +circumstances!" + + + + +CHAPTER III + +IN WHICH HE ASSUMES A RESPONSIBILITY + + +"Red, the new car is here. Come and look her over." + +It was Burns's neighbour on the other side, James Macauley, +Junior. R. P. Burns laid down his saw, with which in the late +June twilight he had been doing vigorous work at a small +woodpile behind the house. He stood up straight, throwing +back his shoulders to take the kink out of them. + +"All right," said he. "I think I'm fit for general society +again. I wasn't when I tackled this job. Nothing like +fifteen minutes of woodpile for taking the temper out of the +saw -and the man." + +Macauley, a stout, good-humoured fellow of thirty-five, +laughed. "That temper of yours, Red has it been on the +rampage again?" + +"It has. Don't talk about it or it'll lift to confounded red +head again - it's only scotched for the present. New car's +here, eh?" + +"Yes, and the pretty widow's here, too - my wife's sister, +Ellen Lessing. We ve a great plan for tomorrow, Red. I can't +venture to drive this elephant of a car yet, but the women are +wild for a trip in her. She holds seven. Martha wants you to +drive us and the Chesters to-morrow a hundred and fifty miles +seventy-five to F-- and back. Will you do it? You're not so +horribly busy just now, and Mrs. Lessing and Pauline Hempstead +together ought to make it worth while for you." + +This feature of the invitation did not appear to appeal to +Burns, but the sight of the touring car, brave and shining in +russet and brass, plainly did. + +"Not that I'd care to drive such a whale for myself, but I +shouldn't mind a run for the fun of trying her out. You say +she's been driven enough to warm up her engines? Suppose we +take her out and let me get the feel of her mouth before +to-morrow?" + +"Come on." And they were off. + +"For a whale she's a bird," was Burns's paradoxical verdict +two hours later. The "trying out" had merged into a smooth +run of forty-five miles at not anything like the full pace of +which the motor was capable. "Best not to overheat her at +first. Run your first three hundred miles with consideration +for her vital organs - she'll have her wind by that time." + +Next morning four women, long-coated, tissue-veiled, watched +the brown beauty roll invitingly up to Macauley's porch steps. + +As she crossed the lawn with Winifred, Pauline Hempstead, the +guest of the Chesters, was studying not only the car, but the +undeniably attractive gray-clad figure of the lately-arrived +younger sister of Mrs. Macauley. "Will Red P. look at her +any more than he does at me?" she murmured in Winifred +Chester's ear. + +"I doubt it, my dear. But he'll be foolish if he doesn't, +won't he?" + +"I don't care for widows myself." + +"I presume not." Winifred laughed comprehendingly. + +"How old is she?" + +"Twenty-eight, I believe - though she doesn't look it." + +"Doesn't look it! She looks a lot more." + +Winifred laughed still, quietly. Although Pauline undoubtedly +had the advantage of Ellen in years, her fair-haired, +blue-eyed, somewhat sumptuous beauty was not of so youthful a +type as the darker colouring and slenderer outlines of +Martha's sister. + +The man at the wheel of the brown car lifted his leather cap +as the women came out, but he left all the bestowal of them to +the other men. Miss Hempstead asked to be allowed to sit +beside the driver, but Macauley vowed that on the first long +run of his new machine he himself should occupy that post of +honour and interest. + +"Coming back, then," insisted the girl, and Macauley agreed +reluctantly. Burns made no comment, but applied himself to +his task - not only then, but also for every minute of the +seventy-five miles to their destination. + +"He might as well be a hired chauffeur," complained Miss +Hempstead when, during a stop of ten minutes on account of a +switching freight train, she had leaned forward and attempted +in vain to carry on a conversation with Burns. "That +abstracted mood of his - is there any breaking into it?" + +"Fall out and break your collar-bone. He'll be all +attention," advised Chester. + +"Thank you. I'm almost tempted to. Why don't you drive +awhile, Mr. Macauley, and give him a rest?" + +"And let him sit here in the middle with you? He couldn't be +pried loose from that wheel now. Besides, I haven't driven +this car yet, and she's too different in her steering from my +old one. I shouldn't like to try with this crowd behind me." + +They reached the distant city; drew up at the steps of the +most attractive hotel; went in to lunch. That is to say, all +did this except R. P. Burns. He remained in the garage in the +rear where he had taken the car, busying himself with some +details of mechanism whose working did not quite suit him. In +spite of summons and appeals he continued to work until the +rest had finished; then he bolted in to wash off dust and +engine grease, ate his lunch in ten minutes - Macauley sitting +by and expostulating - and bolted out again. + +"We're going to walk about a bit," Chester announced, invading +the garage. "The girls insist that you come. Where are your +eyes, man? If Pauline bores you - I admit that she's a trifle +persistent, but she's jolly good company, I think - try Mrs. +Lessing. She's delightful, and not the pursuing style at all +- she's learned better. She hasn't shown the slightest +interest in you all morning. That ought to attract you." + +"I'm going to try a bit of adjustment on this timer now that +Mac's out of the way. Go along, and don't bother me." Burns +was in his shirt-sleeves again and spoke gruffly. His cap was +off, and thick locks lay damply against his moist brow; in his +eyes sparkled enthusiasm but not for women. + +"You certainly are a hopeless case," and Chester went back to +his party. + +"We might as well not have a bachelor along," mourned Pauline. +"Four women - with only two old married men to look after them +- it's a shame." + +"But we're both of us much handsomer than Red Pepper Burns," +asserted James Macauley, Junior. "And I've hardly spoken a +word to my wife since I started - that sort of thing ought to +content you." + +"It doesn't. And neither of you is half as good-looking as +Doctor Burns. He has the most interesting profile I ever saw +- and I ought to know - I seldom catch sight of his full +face." + +"I shouldn't suppose an interesting profile, whatever that is, +would offset a shock of fire-red hair. Now, both Chester's +hair and mine - " + +"His hair isn't fire-red. It's a - rather strong - auburn." + +Macauley shouted and the rest laughed with him. + +"Rather strong! I should say it was. I've been worried about +having him sit near the gasoline tank, it brings his hair so +close to a high combustible. But it has one advantage: if we +don't get home before dark we shan't need to light up. Red's +torch of a head will do the trick; we can come in by the +refulgence from that." + +"I shall be sitting in its light going back, anyhow," Miss +Hempstead exulted. + +"Much good it will do you," prophesied Chester. + +It did Pauline so much good as that she was able to obtain +many looks at the profile she admired, for she saw it +clean-cut against the passing landscape for the sixty miles of +daylight out of the seventy-five miles home, while she sat +beside its owner and tried many times to draw him into talk. +His taciturnity on this particular day was a thing beyond any +experience with it she had yet had. She had heard Burns talk, +and talk well, on many different subjects, the while he sat +upon the Chesters' porch of a summer evening, the three of +them about him, and he had seemed to enjoy talking. He +certainly could not be wholly occupied with the machine, for +at no time did he let the engine out for what it could do, but +contented himself with a steady, moderate pace very different +from the sort of furious speed in which he and the Green Imp +were accustomed to indulge when occasion offered. Altogether +he presented to the girl a problem which she could not solve +and was never further from solving than during the +seventy-five miles she sat beside him on the run home. + +"You're all to come in and have an ice-cool, salad-y supper +with us," Mrs. Macauley declared as the car turned in at the +home driveway. "Hot coffee, too, if you want it - or even +beefsteak if you prefer. But I thought since it was so hot -" + +"I'll take the beefsteak," announced Burns over his shoulder, +"if I find nothing urgent for, me to do. If there's a call -" + +"If there is, make it, and you shall have the beefsteak when +you get back," Martha promised him. Mrs. Macauley was of the +sort of young married woman who delights to make her friends +comfortable - and none better than Red Pepper, who was her +husband's most valued friend, as he was that of his neighbour +on the other side, Arthur Chester. + +To everybody's regret the call was waiting, and as the party +went in to supper they waved their hands at the Green Imp +flying away down the road. It was not till long after the +"ice-cool, salad-y supper" was ended and the women, freshly +clad, were sitting on the porch again, the men smoking on the +steps below them, that tine Green Imp came back. + +Ten minutes later a large figure crossed the lawn at a pace +which suggested both reluctance and fatigue. + +"If it hadn't been for that beefsteak - " Burns began. + +"You wouldn't have come," finished Macauley. "Oh, we know +that! Go in and get it, Red, and perhaps afterward the charms +of human society will have their inning." + +Whether or not the beefsteak made the difference, a change had +taken place when R. P. Burns at length returned to the +comforts of the porch. He threw himself upon a crimson +cushion on the upper step, precisely at the feet, as it +chanced, of Ellen Lessing. As he leaned comfortably back +against the porch pillar he looked directly up into her face, +his eyes meeting hers with an odd, searching expression as if +he now saw her for the first time. Pauline, gazing enviously +across, saw the black eyes meet the hazel ones in the dim +light, and noted that a curiously long look was exchanged - +the sort of look which denotes that two people are observing +each other closely, without attempt at producing an +impression, only at discovering what is there. + +But when Burns began to talk he appeared to address the +midsummer night air, staring off into it and speaking rather +low, so that they all leaned forward to listen. For, at last, +he seemed to have something other than motor cars upon his +mind. + +"He's a mighty taking little chap," he said musingly. "Curly +black hair, eyes like coals - with a fringe around 'em like a +hedge. Cheeks none too round - but milk and eggs and good red +steaks will take care of that. A body like a cherubs - when +it's filled out a bit." + +"What in the name of gibberish are you giving as, Red?" +inquired Macauley. + +"Name's Bob," went on Red Pepper. "By all the odd chances! +That's what decided me. `Bobby Burns' - it was the last +straw!" + +"Is he crazy?" asked Chester of the company. They seemed +undecided. They were listening closely. + +"Clothes - one pair of patched breeches -remember `Little +Breeches,' Ches? - one faded flannel shirt - mended till +there wasn't much left to mend. A straw hat with a fringe +around it - uneven fringe. Inside - a heartache as big as a +little fellow could carry and stagger under it. Think of +having the heartache - at five and for your grandmother!" + +"Why for his grandmother?" asked Winifred Chester. + +"Because there wasn't anybody else to have it for. Rest all +gone, grandmother the one who attended the breeches and +patched the shirt, and went without food herself lest the +boy's cheeks get thinner yet. That was what fixed her at last +- she hadn't enough vitality to pull her through." + +"So that was the matter with you to-day," hazarded Chester. +"Worried about your patient all day and found you'd lost her +when you got back?" + +Burns turned upon him with a characteristic flash. "You go +join the ranks of the snap-shots. They sometimes miss fire. +No, I didn't. I'd lost her before I went or I wouldn't have +gone, not for you or any other box-party. It was the kiddie +that was on my mind - as I'd seen him last." + +"Where is he now?" asked Martha Macauley urgently. She was +the mother of two small sons, and Burns's sketch had +interested her. + +He looked up at her. "Want to see him?" + +"Of course I do. Did you take him to somebody in town? Are +you going to send him to the asylum in the city?" + +"Do you want to see him?". Burns inquired of Winifred +Chester. He rose. + +"Red! What do you mean? Have you got a child here?" + +"Come along, all of you, if you like. He won't wake up. He's +sleeping like a top - can't help it, with all that bread and +milk inside of him. Part cream it was, too. I saw Cynthia +chucking it in. He'd got her, good and plenty, in the first +five minutes. Bless her susceptible heart! Come on." + +"Talk of susceptible hearts," jeered Macauley as he followed. +"There's the softest one in the county." + +"Nobody would ever guess it," murmured Pauline Hempstead. + +They tiptoed into the house, across the offices into the big, +square room which was Burns's own. He switched on a hooded +reading-light beside the bed and turned it so that its rays +fell on the small occupant. + +He lay in spread-eagle, small-child fashion, arms and legs +thrown wide, the black, curly head disdaining the pillow, one +fist clutching a man's riding-crop. In sleep the little face +was an exquisite one; the onlookers might guess what it would +be awake. + +Burns pointed at the crop, smiling. "That was the nearest +approach to a plaything I could muster to-night. To-morrow +the shops will help me out." + +"I'll send over plenty in the morning, Red," whispered Martha +Macauley. Her eyes were suspiciously shiny. + +"Did you bring him home just now?" questioned Winifred. + +Burns nodded. "I hadn't meant to get him to-night, if I did +at all. My call took me within half a mile. I went over and +saw him again. That settled it." + +The small sleeper stirred, sighed. Burns turned off the light +in a twinkling. "He's not used to electricity point blank," +he chuckled. + +Going down the steps a hand touched his arm. He looked into +Ellen Lessing's upturned face and discovered anew that it was +a face to hold the attention of a man. But there was no +coquetry in it. Instead, he saw a stirred look in eyes which +struck him suddenly as singularly like those of the child he +had just shown her, "black, with a fringe around 'em." + +"Doctor Burns," she said, "will you give me the very great +pleasure of dressing the boy? I know how to do it." + +"Of course, if you want to," he responded gladly. "I hoped +you ladies would look after that." + +"Let me do it alone," she urged. "They have their children: +it would only be a task to them. To me - I can't tell you +what a delight it would be." + +"I'll take you and Bob to the city in the morning if you'll +go." + +"It will be a happy morning for Bob and me, then," she +answered, and he saw it in her face that it would be. But he +felt that it was because of the boy; not for any other reason. +It occurred to him that it might possibly be a happy morning +for the driver of the Green Imp, also. + +"So Ellen's going to dress the brat." Macauley was strolling +over the lawn with Chester and Burns, as, having out-sat the +women on the Macauley porch, the men were turning bedward, +reluctant to leave the cool star-shine of the July night. +"It's easy to see why she wants to do that. Her +three-year-old boy would have been just about this Bob's age +by now. Tough luck, wasn't it? - when he was all she had +left since Jack got out of the game?" + +Burns stared at him. "Oh, that's why? I didn't know about +her boy, or I'd forgotten it if I was ever told. She will +enjoy fitting Bob out, if I can keep her from putting him into +white clothes to make him resemble an angel instead of a small +boy with an eye for dirt." + +"You'll find Ellen's no fool," Macauley assured him warmly. +"But if she takes an interest in the boy it'll be the best +thing that could happen to him. She has a lot of money. She +may get a notion to adopt him." + +But upon this Red Pepper Burns spoke with decision. "Confound +you, the kiddie belongs to me. Didn't I tell you his name is +now Robert Burns? She may dress him if she likes. She can't +have him, not by a long shot. He's mine!" + +"Oh, well, it might be arranged," murmured Macauley, but not +quite low enough. In a flash he was laid flat on his back on +the lawn, a menacing figure standing over him. + +"None of that!" growled the man with the temper. "Not now or +any other time." Then he laughed and let his victim up. +"Alcohol will take out grass stains, Jim," he advised. "Tell +Martha that." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +IN WHICH HE MAKES A CONCESSION + + + +Red Pepper Burns opened his eyes. What on earth was that? A +small voice piping at him from within close range? But how +could that be? + +Something bumped against him. He turned his head on his +pillow. A small figure at his side had raised itself upon its +elbow; big black eyes in a pale little face were staring at +him in affright. Burns roused himself, suddenly very wide +awake indeed. + +"It's all right, little man," said he, pulling the child +gently into the warmth of his encircling arm. "You came home +with me last night. Don't you remember? You're going to make +me a visit. And this morning after breakfast we're going to +drive to town and buy a train of cars - red, shiny cars and an +engine with a bell on it. What do you think of that?" + +It did not take long to change Bob's fright into the happiest +anticipations. Red Pepper Burns was at his best with +children; he had what their mothers called "a way with them." + +A knock at the door and Cynthia's voice calling," Here's some +things for the little boy, Doctor," put an end to a full +half-hour of delightful comradeship, during which the sheets +of the bed had became a tent and the two were soldiers resting +after a day's march. Burns rose and took in the parcel. +Martha Macauley had sent it. Her boy Harold was the nearest +in size to Bob of any of the children of his neighbours, and +the parcel held everything needed from undershirt to scarlet +Windsor scarf to tie under the rolling collar of the blue +blouse. + +"A bath first, Bob," and his new guardian initiated him into +the exciting experience of a splash in a big white tub, in +water decidedly warmer than it would be a week hence when he +should have become used to the invigorating cool plunge. Then +Burns, glowing from contact with water as cold as it could be +got from the tap, clad in bathrobe and slippers, attempted to +solve the mysteries of Bob's toilet. Roars of laughter +interspersed with high pipings of glee presently brought +Cynthia to the door. + +"Can't I help you, Doctor Burns?" she called anxiously. + +"Not a bit of it, Cynthia: much obliged. I'm having the time +of my life. Stand still, son; let's try it this way round!" +came back to the housekeeper's ears. + +"I ain't never wore so many fings before," Bob declared +doubtfully, as a small white waist with, dangling elastic +stocking-supporters was finally discovered to go best buttoned +in the back. + +"I know. But you'll see how fine it is to have your stockings +held up for you. Hi! Here are some sandals, Bob! Barefoot +sandals, only we'll wear them over stockings to-day, since +we're going shopping. Now for these blue garments I wonder +how they go. Shapeless-looking things, they look to me. I +suppose they'll resolve into baggy knickers and the sort of +long shirt with a belt to it the youngsters of your age all +wear. Here we go. Does this top part button behind, Bob, +like the waist? No, I think not . . . . It sure looks odd, +whichever way we don it, but that may be because it's pretty +big. Harold's several sizes bigger than you, though he can't +be much older. Give me six months and I'll have you filling +out any other five-year-olds clothes." + +"My hands - they're all gone," remarked the child, holding out +his arms. The blue sleeves did, indeed, cover them to the +finger-tips. Laughing, Burns rolled the cloth back, making an +awkward bunch at the wrist, but allowing the small hands +freedom. + +"When Mrs. Lessing trains her eye on you she'll want to make +time getting to the shops," Burns observed, struggling with +the scarlet scarf and finally tying it like a four-in-hand. +"But you're clean, Bob, and hungry, I hope. Now I want a +great big hug to pay me for dressing you." + +He held out his arms, and his new charge sprang into them, +pressing arms like sticks around the strong neck of the man +who seemed to him already the best friend he had in the world +- as he was. + +At eleven o'clock, a round of calls made, the Green Imp carne +for Bob and Mrs. Lessing. They met him, hand in hand, the +little figure in its voluminous misfit clothes looking quaint, +enough beside the perfect outlines of his companion's attire. +But both faces were very happy. + +"How many dollars do you suppose Ellen has, stowed away in +that handsome purse of hers, ready to spend on the child?" +Martha Macauley queried of Winifred Chester as they watched +the Green Imp out of sight from the Macauley porch. + +Mrs. Chester shook her head. "I've no idea. She'll want to +get him everything a child could have. But Red won't let +her." + +"He won't know. He'll drop them at a store and go off to the +hospital. The things will come home by special delivery, and +the next thing he sees will be Bob in silk socks and white +linen." + +"I don't believe it. He'll go shopping with them. He's wild +over the boy, and he doesn't care a straw what people might +think who saw the three together. He'll tyrannize over Ellen +- and she'll let him, for the pleasure of being ruled by a man +once more!" + +It was a shrewd prophecy and goes to show that women really +understand each other pretty well - women of the same sort. +For Red Pepper Burns did go shopping with the pair from start +to finish. It was an experience he did not see any, occasion +for missing. + +"You won't mind my coming, too?" was all the permission he +asked, and Mrs. Lessing answered simply: "Surely not, if you +care to. We shall want your judgment." + +She had not conducted them to a department store, but to the +small shop of a decidedly exclusive children's outfitter. +Burns knew nothing about the presumably greater cost of buying +a wardrobe in a place like this, but he soon scented danger. +He scrutinized certain glass showcases containing wax lay +figures of pink-cheeked youngsters attired as for the stage, +and boomed his first caution into his companion's ear. + +"That's not the sort of puppet we want to make out of Bob, +eh?" he suggested. + +She turned, smiling. "Not unless you intend to keep him in a +glass case, Doctor Burns." + +"No long-trousered imitation of a sailor-boy, either, please," +said he, pointing, disfavour in his eye, at the presentment of +a curly-headed infant of five in a Jack-tar outfit of white +flannel topped by an expensive straw hat. + +"I see you're not going to trust me," murmured Mrs. Lessing, +as a slim-waisted, trailing-black-gowned saleswoman +approached. + +"I'll trust you, but I intend to keep my eye on you," admitted +Burns frankly. He observed with interest the wonderful figure +of the saleswoman. Quite possibly that lady thought he was +admiring her, for nothing in his face could have told her that +he was mapping out in his surgeon's mind her physical anatomy, +and speculating as to where in the name of Hygeia she could +have disposed of her digestive organs in a circumference the +diminutive size of that! + +Underwear first. Mrs. Lessing went straight at the +foundations of Bob's make up, and began to look over boxes of +little gossamer shirts and tiny union suits of a fabric so +delicately fine that Burns handled a fold of it suspiciously. + +"Silk?" he questioned. + +She shook her head, the corners of her mouth curving. "Only a +thread now and then. Mostly lisle - for very hot weather. +These others have some wool in them, for cooler days. Those +nearest you are quite warm, though very light in weight. For +really cold weather - " + +"You're not planning to watch the thermometer and keep him +changing underwear accordingly?" + +"Not at all, Doctor Burns. But four weights for the year +aren't too many, are they?" + +"Are you buying for a year ahead?" + +"Please let me. I shall not be here when he needs to change." + +Their eyes met. Something in hers made him desist from +argument. + +Stockings came next. Mrs. Lessing bought substantial tan ones +in quantity, long and well reenforced. Then she took up socks +of russet and of white. "Shall you object to his wearing +these a good, deal?" she asked Burns. He took up one small +sample, running his fingers into it. "I should think he might +put his toes through one of those in an hour or two," he +suggested. "His legs are pretty thin. Do you think pipe-stem +legs in short socks, to say nothing of bruises and scratches, +really attractive?" + +"You want him to go barefooted a good deal of the time, don't +you?" + +"Sure. But legs in socks are neither fish, flesh, nor good +red herring, to my thinking." + +In spite of the smile on his lips, he looked obstinate and she +deliberated, drawing a white sock unmistakably fine and +expensive over her gray-gloved hand. Plainly she wanted to +see Bob in socks and strap slippers, of the sort her boy would +have worn. As she studied the sock Burns studied her profile. +"Get him a pair, for your own satisfaction," he conceded. + +He did not hear the order she gave, but the saleswoman was +pleasantly smiling as she checked it. + +The next thing that happened, Bob was being measured. Then he +was trying on Russian blouse suits that fitted, practical +little garments of blue galatea, of tan-coloured linen crash, +even of brown holland. Burns looked on approvingly. The +clothes turned Bob into a gentleman's son, no doubt of that, +but it was the sort of gentleman's son who can have the very +best of romping, good times. + +Something diverted Bums's attention for a little, and when he +turned back to Bob a bright scarlet reefer had been pulled on +over his blouse, and a wide sailor hat with a scarlet ribbon +crowned his black curls. The result was engagingly +picturesque. But the critic frowned. + +"I'm afraid that won't do, Mrs. Lessing," he objected +decidedly. + +"You don't like the colour? Not with his hair and eyes?" + + "It won't hurt his hair, but it will his eyes. The sun on +that red will torture him." + +"Will it? I shouldn't have thought of it. So many children +wear them." + +"And shortly come to spectacles. Try it yourself for half an +hour." + +She drew off the reefer. Bob objected. "I like the red +jacky, Dotter Burns," he said. It was his first comment. +Hitherto he had been in a dazed state, submitting wonderingly +to this strange experience. + +Another small coat of tan-coloured cloth with a gorgeous +red-and-brown emblem on the sleeve consoled him: + +"I think we are through," said Mrs. Lessing Burns looked at +her. + +"No white clothes?" he asked. + +"Did you want him to have some?" + +"No. But I thought you would." + +"I have ordered three suits to be made for him," she admitted, +flushing a little. "They will be very plain and will launder +beautifully. He will wear them only on special occasions. Do +you mind?" + +"Well, not on those conditions," he agreed reluctantly. + +They went to a shoe shop, and Bob became the richer for +leather sandals, canvas shoes, and various other footwear, +some of it undeniably fine. Burns took one little black +slipper into his hand. + +"I wonder what Bob's grandmother would say to that," he +observed in a whisper. + +Ellen Lessing regarded its mate. Her lashes hid her eyes, but +her lip quivered and he saw it. The salesman was busy with +Bob. Burns laid his hand for an instant on hers. She looked +up, and a smile struggled with the tears. + +A toy shop came last. Here Bob was in an ecstasy. His +companions walked up and down the aisles, following his eager +steps. Mrs. Lessing would have filled his arms, but she found +the way obstructed. + +"He may have the train of cars," Burns consented. "But they +must be cars he'll have to pull about for himself. No, not +the trotting horse, nor the trolley on the track, nor any +other of the mechanical stuff. I'll get him that dandy little +tool-chest and that box of building blocks, but that's +enough." + +"The mechanical toys are of the best, sir," suggested the +salesman. "They won't break except with pretty rough +handling." + +"That's bad," Burns asserted. "The quicker they broke, the +less objection I'd have to 'em. It's a wonder the modern +child has a trace of resource or inventiveness left in him. +Teach him to construct, not to destroy, then you've done +something for him." + +"Isn't he rather young for tools?" Mrs. Lessing was turning +over a small saw in her hands, feeling its sharp teeth with a +premonitory finger. + +"There are gauze and bandages in the office." He laughed at +her expression as she laid down the saw. + +"You won't object to that box of tin soldiers?" she asked. + +"Decidedly. You don't want to spoil him at the start. For a +boy who never had a toy in his life he's acquired enough now +to turn his head. Come away, Mrs. Lessing - flee temptation. +Come, Bobby boy." And Burns led the way. + +Bob, astride of a marvellous rocking-horse taller than +himself, was like to weep. Mrs. Lessing went to him. He +whispered something in her ear. She came back to Burns. + +"Doctor Burns," said she, "every boy has a rocking-horse. +He's just the age to enjoy it. Surely it won't hazard his +inventiveness: it will develop it. He'll ride all over the +country, as you do in the Green Imp." + +"What's the price?" + +"It's not costly and it's a very good one." + +Burns inquired the price again; this time he asked the +salesman. Then he spoke low: + +"Fifteen dollars seems `not costly' to you, I suppose. Think +of Bob yesterday, with not a toy to his name." + +"That's why I want to give him one to-day." + +"He'll be just as happy riding a stick - as soon as he forgets +this." + +"He won't forget it. Look at his eyes." + +"You're looking at his eyes all the time. That's what undoes +you." + +He had to look away from her eyes then himself, or he felt +quite suddenly that he, too, would have been undone. He had +resisted the entreaty in women's eyes many times, but not +always, despite the reputation he held for indifference. + +"Doctor Burns, won't you give me this one pleasure? You've +really been quite firm all the morning." + +She was smiling, but he had himself in hand again and he was +blunt with her. "Bob's bachelor's child now," he said. "He +must be trained according to bachelors' ideas. Come, you know +it's out of reason to give the youngster any more to-day. Be +sensible." + +They followed him out of the store, Bob's hand held fast in +hers. Somehow, they both looked very young as they stood +outside the shop window, gazing back at the marvellous display +within. He felt as if he were being rather cruel to them +both. This was absurd, of course, when one considered the box +of blocks, the train of cars and the toolkit. The child had +enough playthings already to send him out of his head. Burns +drove away rapidly to get out of range of other windows which +seemed filled with rocking-horses to-day. + +He looked down at Bob. + +"Happy, little chap?" he asked. + +Bob nodded. His arms clasped the red train but he was not +looking at it. + +"Like the cars?" + +Bob nodded. His wide sailor hat obscured his face. Burns +could see only the tip of the small nose. + +"You'll have a splendid time with those blocks, won't you?" + +Again the nod, but no reply. + +"The hammer's pretty nice, too, isn't it?" + +Once more the dumb answer. But the silence seemed odd, for +Bob had long since lost his fear 'of these companions. + +"Look up here, Bob." + +Reluctantly the child obeyed. Burns caught one fleeting +glimpse of wet black lashes. One big tear was slowly stealing +down the pale little cheek. + +"What's the matter, old man?" + +No reply. + +Burns looked at Ellen Lessing behind Bob's back. She did not +meet his glance. She was looking at the boy. It struck him +that her profile made the most enchanting outline he had ever +seen. He tried to steel his heart against them both. He knew +his theory was right; he now had the chance to put it into +practice. + +The Green Imp turned a corner to the right. They were not yet +out of the city, and at the next block the car turned another +corner, also to the right. At the end of another block the +Imp, swerved once more - to the right. This brought them back +to the wide street which led to the shopping district they had +lately left. With silent passengers the Imp threaded its way +to the toy shop. In front of it Burns stopped the car. He +got out and went in and came out, the big rocking-horse in the +arms of the salesman who followed him. + +He looked up at their faces. Bob's was one wide-eyed +countenance of incredulous joy. The other's - if he had seen +there satisfaction at having brought a man to terms he felt he +should have despised her; but that was not what he saw. + +There was, by planning carefully, just room to wedge the +rocking-horse in at Mrs. Lessing's feet without encroaching on +the steering-gear. As they drove off, Bob was bending over +and gently, stroking the animal's splendid black mane, with +little chuckles and gurgles of joy. Once more Burns looked at +Ellen Lessing behind Bob's back. + +"You're happy now, aren't you?" he asked in tone of assurance. +"Then, confound it, I must own I'm paid for letting my wise +bachelor notions go hang, just for this time!" + +"Thank you," she answered very gently. "And I'm paid for +trying to be reasonable." + +He laughed, suddenly content. Between them, the little lad +who had never owned a toy in his life, stowing the red train +carefully away between has feet, gave himself wholly to the +rocking-horse. + + +Well, Ellen," was Martha Macauley's greeting to her sister, +"did you have as interesting a time dressing the child as you +expected?" + +"I had a charming tune," replied Mrs. Lessing. She shook the +dust out of her long gray veils smiling at her memory of the +morning. + +"Did R. P. prove docile?" + +Docile' doesn't seem to me just the word." + +"I used it in an attempt at fine irony," explained! Mrs. +Macauley. + +"Well, was he tractable, then?" + +"He was very polite and kind and jolly - until the real +business of shopping began. Then he became suspicious - and a +trifle autocratic." She recalled his look as he told her +that he would trust her, but that he meant to keep an eye upon +her. + +Didn't you get your own way about anything?" demanded her +sister, with eager curiosity. + +Ellen looked at her. Martha noted that the soft black eves +were glowing, and that she had not seen Ellen appear more +alive and interested since the days before trouble came to +her. "Do you imagine we fought a battle over our shopping?" +she asked, her lips curving with merriment. + +"But you don't tell me. I'm anxious to know whether we shall +see the boy dressed according to Red's ideas or yours." + +"We agreed beautifully on nearly all points of his dressing. +Where we differed, we - compromised." + +"Red never compromises with anybody, so I suppose it was done +by your giving in?" + +"He never compromises? You do him injustice." He can +compromise royally - by the same method of `giving in.'" + +"I simply can't believe it," murmured Martha,, shaking her +head. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +IN WHICH HE IS ROUGH ON A FRIEND + + +"RED" + +"Yes?" + + +"Are you through with that rabble? Can you 'tend to a +friend?" + +Redfield Pepper Burns wheeled around in his revolving chair +and glanced sharply at Arthur Chester. What he saw made him +follow the moment's inspection with a direct question. + +"Sit down. What have you been doing?" + +Chester sat down. His face was white. He held up one shaking +hand. "Red, what's the matter with me?" + +Burns continued to study the man before him. He made no move +to examine into his condition, just looked steadily into the +other's face with a gaze before which his patient presently +shifted uneasily. + +"Well, of all the ways to treat a fellow!" He tried to laugh. +"Is that the way you do with the rest of the bunch that come +to you every day? Or are you trying to hypnotize me?" + +"Look me in the eye, Ches. What have you been doing?" + +"Working like a fiend in that infernal office. If there's any +hotter place - " + +"There'll be a hotter one for you right on this earth, if you +keep on the way you're going." + +He rose suddenly, and approaching Chester closely, looked +intently into the uplifted eyes. He sat down again. "Own +up!" he commanded bluntly. + +"Red," begged Chester, "quit this sort of thing. Go at me in +the usual way. I - I think I'm a bit nervous tonight. I +can't stand your gun-fire." + +"All right. When did you begin?" + +"Five weeks ago when you were away. I didn't mean to get into +it, Red, on my word I didn't, after all you've warned me. But +it was so beastly hot - and there was a lot of extra work at +the office. My head got to going it night and day. I - say" +- he leaned suddenly forward, has head on his hands - "I can +tell you better if you give me some kind of a bracer - I feel +- so - deadly." + +Burns got up and prepared something in a glass something not +particularly palatable, but when it had taken action, which it +promptly did, Chester's white face had acquired a tinge of +colour and he could go on. + +"I stopped in Gardner's office one day when my head was worse +than usual. Had to meet a man in ten minutes - important deal +on for the house - had to be at my best. Told Gardner so. He +fixed me." + +"He did - blame him - fixed you for a dope-fiend. I've told +you a hundred times you had precisely the kind of temperament +that must avoid that sort of thing like the gallows." Burns +hit the desk with his fist as he spoke, with a thump of +impatience. + +"It seems to set me up for a while - I can do anything. Then +afterward - " + +"You're getting the afterward all right. How much do you +take?" + +Chester mentioned the amount of the drug, stating reluctantly +that for the last two days he had been obliged slightly to +increase it in order to get the full effect. + +"Of course you have - that's the insidiousness of the devil's +stuff. How soon does it get into action?" + +"Oh, right away - almost instantly." + +"What! Is your imagination strong enough to - See here, +Ches" - Burns leaned forward "you're taking the stuff by +mouth, of course?" + +Chester's eyes went down. "Why - I tried it that way - but it +was so slow " + +Burns ejaculated something under his breath; the quick colour, +always ready to flare under his clear skin, leaped out. + +"Gardner gave you a hypo, I suppose?" + +"Yes." + +"So you went and bought a syringe and taught yourself the +trick. Suppose you give me a look at it." + +Like a shamed schoolboy Chester unwillingly drew forth the +small case from his pocket. Burns received it. He opened it +and took out the tiny instrument. "It looks like a very good +one," he observed with a sort of deadly quietness. and with +one motion of his big fingers snapped the glass barrel in two. + +At this Chester took fire. "That's going a little too far!" +he burst out in wrath. + +"Is it? Thought it was you who had gone too far. It's up to +me to bring you back - while I can. Getting this little fiend +out of the way is the first step. Keep cool, Ches - and I'll +try to do the same, though it makes my blood boil to think how +little you've cared for my lectures to you on this very +thing." + +"I have cared. But I had no idea " + +"Well, you have one now. It's taken you five weeks to acquire +enough of a habit to give you some trouble to drop it. You're +that sort and that's the way it works, anyhow. I wonder you +came to me to-night. Found yourself out of the stuff and +didn't like to try to get it here where folks know you?" + +"If you want to put everything in the most disagreeable way +you can - yes," admitted Chester testily. + +"That's precisely what I want to do. Put it in such a +disagreeable way that your backbone'll stiffen up a bit and +give us something to start with. If I make you mad all the +better - so long as you don't go back to fools like Gardner, +who never hesitate to give a fellow like you a sample of what +that drug'll do for 'em:" + +"What are you going to do? I shan't sleep to-night, and I've +got to be in the office to-morrow morning." + +"When's your vacation due?" + +"Not till week after next." + +"Arrange to take it now." + +"I can't. Stillinger's off on his, Monday morning." + +"Could you have yours now if he waited?" + +"Yes, but I wouldn't ask him." + +"I would." Burns took down the receiver of his desk +telephone. + +"Red, stop - I don't want - " + +Burns paid no attention to him. In five minutes he had the +city connection and his man. He stated the case: Chester was +in urgent need of taking his vacation without delay, but was +not willing to ask the favour of his office associate. He, +Burns, his friend's physician, did not scruple to ask it if it +would not interfere too seriously with Mr. Stillinger's plans. +No diplomat could re quest a favour more courteously than R. +P. Burns, M.D. The reply was the one to be expected of +Stillinger, bachelor and amiable fellow, who was fond of +Chester and hoped it was nothing serious. Tell him to go +ahead with his vacation, Stillinger said, and not to worry +over office affairs. + +"Now!" Burns wheeled round from the telephone. "Will you put +yourself in my hands?" + +"Do you honestly think I'm such an abandoned case - already," +began Chester unhappily, "that you have to - " + +"Listen to me, Ches. I don't think you're an abandoned case - +that's nonsense - after five weeks. But I do think you're +well started on a road that it's ruin to travel. You began it +way back last winter by taking that headache stuff in double +the dose I gave you, without consulting me, every time you +felt a trifle below par. That's why I took it away from you. +You felt the loss of it, and you were an easy mark for +Gardner's dope. You've grown so dependent on that already +that you're going to have a fight to get along without it. +You can't fight and do office work, so I'm going to make the +most of my chance during this fortnight's vacation - if you'll +give me leave. If you won't - I think I'll knock you down and +get you where I want you that way." + +He smiled - a smile with so much spirit and affection in it +that Chester's eyes filled, to his own astonishment, for up to +this point he had been both hurt and angry. After a moment he +said, with his eyes on the floor, but in a different tone from +any he had yet used: "Go ahead, Red. I'll try to prove I have +some stuff in me yet." + +"Of course you have." Burns's hand was on his friend's +shoulder. "That's what I'm counting on. Prove it by +following directions to the letter. And begin by coming with +me for a trip into the country. I have to see a case before I +go to bed, and the air will do your head good." + +It was the first of many similar trips. Arthur Chester may +fairly have been said to spend the succeeding fortnight in the +company of the Green Imp and its driver. From morning till +night, and often in the night itself when he found it +impossible to sleep, he was living in the open air by means of +this device. Of walking, also, he did an increasing amount as +his strength grew under the regimen Burns insisted upon. But +for the first week, in spite of all the help his physician +could give him, he found himself indeed involved in a fierce +struggle - a struggle with shaken and unmanageable nerves; +with a desperate craving for the soothing, uplifting effect of +the drug to which he was forced to admit he had become +perilously accustomed; with a black depression of spirit which +was worse than anything else he had to combat. + +It was at the worst of one of these periods of darkness that, +alone with his patient upon a hilltop where the two had +climbed, leaving the Green Imp at a point where the road had +become impossible, Burns said suddenly: + +"Ches, I believe, with all my care to give you the treatment I +thought you needed, I've failed to point out the most potent +remedy of all." + +Chester shook his head. "You've done everything, Red. All +the trouble's with me. I'm so pitiably weak - so much weaker +than I ever dreamed I could be. I can't seem to care whether +I get out of this or not. All I want is to lie down and go to +sleep - and never wake up." + +The last words came under his breath, but Burns heard them. +He showed no sign of being startled, though this mood was a +gloomier one than he had yet seen his patient succumb to. +Instead, he went on talking in a tone of confidence: + +"I ought to have known enough to apply this remedy, because +it's one I've tried myself. If you could know, since the +night you heard me make a certain vow, what a time I've had +with myself to keep it, you'd understand that I know what it +means to try to break up a habit. Mine's the habit of years. +With my temper and some of my associations, intemperate +profanity's been the easiest thing in the world to fall into. +When things went wrong, out would come the oaths like water +out of a spring - though that's a false comparison: like the +filth out of a sewer, I'd better say." + +"We all swear more or less," acknowledged Chester, his head in +his hands. + +"Not as I did - and you know it. I've been responsible for +many a boy's taking it up, though I didn't realize it. +Because I was athletic and in for sports with them, they +thought I was the whole thing. They laughed when I got mad +and ripped out a lot of language: they copied it. But I never +heard myself as others hear me till that night I let go at the +mother who'd ignorantly murdered her boy by disobeying orders. +On the way home that night I woke up - came to myself - I +don't know how. The stars were unusually bright, and I looked +up at them and thought of that child's soul going back to its +Maker . . . . and then thought of my curses following it and +coming to His ear." + +A silence fell. When Burns broke it, it was in a voice deep +with feeling. + +"The next words I sent up to that ear were in a different +shape. I think it was the first real prayer I'd ever said +since the little parrot prayers my mother taught me. That was +the first: it hasn't been the last. I don't suppose I say +much that would sound like the preacher's language, but Ches, +what I do believe is that - I get what I ask for. That's - +help to fight my temptations. And profanity isn't the only +one nor the toughest one to down." + +Chester looked up. For a moment he forgot himself and his +wretchedness. "It's hard to believe it's you, Red - talking +like this." + +"I know it must be hard, but it ought to be the more +convincing on that account. I belong to a profession of +materialists, and all at once it's grown to seem to me the +strangest thing in life that a man who studies the anatomy of +this body of ours should be a materialist. To watch its +workings and then doubt the God who made it is sheet wilful +blindness. But, Ches - I've got my eyes open at last. The +God who made me is up there, and He knows and cares how I go +on with the job. As for answering my appeals for help when I +get hard pressed - the, biggest sign I have of that is a human +one. Since Bobby Burns came to sleep in that little bed next +mine, it's been a whole lot easier to get on." + +A deep sigh was Chester's reply to this. He had a small boy +and girl of his own. For their sakes and Winifred's he knew +he must fight this fight out and win. But as for getting +tangible help from the Creator of a body handicapped by nerves +like his! He began to say this, but Burns broke in upon him +with the answer he would least have expected at a moment like +this a great, ringing laugh, the sound of which brought the +slow blood to Chester's white face. + +"If you consider wrecked nerves like mine a laughing matter -" +he broke out. + +But Burns, his laugh over, was sober again and his voice was +earnest. "Arthur Chester, don't make Him responsible for your +`wrecked nerves.' They weren't wrecked when you were +furnished with them. You've done the wrecking yourself by +breaking pretty nearly every law that governs the workings of +the human machine. You're paying the penalty. But you're +going to get the upper hand. From now on, in spite of your +office life, you're going to get good red blood in your veins +- and your brains. The worst is over now - the second week +will be easier. But what I'm trying to tell you is that +you'll get that upper hand a lot quicker if" - his cheek grew +hot with this strange, unaccustomed effort at putting things +he had never spoken of before into words - "if you'll just +reach up and take hold of that `Upper Hand' that, according to +my new belief and experience, is ready to reach down to you. +It's stronger than yours: you'll feel the upward pull." + +He broke off and got to his feet. The two had been sitting on +a fallen log, looking off over the hills toward a distant +river winding its blue length through fields of living green. + +"I wasn't exactly cut out for a preacher, Ches," he added +after a minute. "I hope my talk doesn't sound to you like +`cant.' I'm a pretty poor specimen of a chap to be setting up +my own example for anybody to follow." + +"I don't think you've been setting up your own example," +Chester replied. He pulled himself up limply from the log, +yet out of his face had gone the black look which had been +there when he carne up the hill. "And what you've said +doesn't sound like `cant' to me, Red. It sounds more like +'can.'" + +Red Pepper Burns held out his hand. His big; warm fingers +closed hard over the thin; cold ones which met them. Then the +two men, without more words, went away down the hill. From +this hour Arthur Chester afterward dated the beginning of the +end of the fight. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +IN WHICH HE PRESCRIBES FOR HIMSELF + + +"Red," observed James Macauley, junior, "this place of yours +looks like a drunkard's home." + +He glanced around him as he spoke. The criticism certainly +found justification in every corner. No more neglected office +could have been discovered belonging to any practitioner +within an area of many miles. + +"I suppose it does," rejoined Burns from the depths of a big, +dusty leather chair where he sat stretched in an attitude +expressing extreme fatigue. " But I don't care a hang." + +Macauley looked at him. His eyes were closed. His arms lay +upon the chair arms, relaxed and limp. For the first time his +friend observed what might have been noted by a critical eye +on any day during the last fortnight. The lines on the +ordinarily strong, health-tinted face were deeper than he had +ever seen them; the cheeks were thinner; there were even +shadows under the thick eyelashes which outlined the lids of +the closed eyes. + +"Look here, old man," Macauley cried, sudden conviction +seizing him, "you're working altogether too hard. This +miserable city epidemic has done you out. I've thought all +the time you were trying to cover too much ground." + +"Ground's had to be covered," replied the other briefly, +without opening his eyes. + +"Have the other fellows worked as hard as you?" + +"Harder." + +"I don't believe it. They're all city men. You've done all +this city work and looked after your own patients here, too, +to say nothing of living in both places at once. With your +housekeeper gone home to her sick folks, and Miss Mathewson +off on one of your cases - no wonder this place looks the way +it does." + +"It doesn't matter. Cut it out about the place. I'm going +back in ten minutes." + +"You are! Not going to get to bed?" + +"Don't know. I might snatch a nap now if you'd quit talking." + +Macauley closed his mouth. Presently he got up and stole out +of the room. He was back again in a trice, a flask in one +hand, a soda siphon in the other, and a small glass balanced +on his thumb. When Burns, at the sound of a clock ticking +somewhere, rubbed his eyes with his fists striking in and +reluctantly opened them, Macauley spoke briskly: + +"See here - I'm going to give you a bracer. I know your +confounded notions, but they don't cut any figure when you +need something to pull you together the way you do to-night." + +He started to measure out the amber liquid into the glass, but +Burns put up a hand. + +"Much obliged, but I don't want any." + +"You idiot - don't you know when to make an exception to your +rule? I admit you've won out over the other fellows just by +keeping a steady hand, but you're dead as a dog for rest +to-night and you need a stiff one, if I'm any judge." + +"You're not - for me." Burns sat up. O Heavens, man, if I +were going to break my rule at all it wouldn't be for a drink +of anything. It would be for a stab in the arm with something +that beats your stuff all out for stimulating the fatigue out +of a fellow and making him feel like working till he drops." + +"Why don't you have it then?" asked Macauley curiously. "I +should think if ever a used-up chap were justified in - " + +"Don't give me that talk if you're my friend. It's hard +enough to hold out without resorting to that game. I don't +need you to advise it. I've seen enough of that sort of +suicide. Buller and Fields are both down and out, and they +began to brace early in the epidemic. Van Horn's a wreck, +though he keeps going; and I tell you, I've more respect for +that man than I ever had before. He's a poseur and a toadier, +no doubt of that, and I've always despised him for it, but he +has real ability and he's worked like a fiend through this +muss, and not all for his rich patients, either. But he's +weakening fast, and it's drug stimulation that's done it. No, +sir: not for mine. But I'll make myself a cup of coffee, for +I've got to keep awake, and I shall sleep in my tracks if I +don't." + +He got up and stumbled out into his deserted kitchen. +Macauley followed, helping as best he knew how, and watched +his friend gulp down two cupfulls of a muddy liquid with +feeling of admiration such as a small act of large +significance may sometimes stir in one who apprehends. + +Two days later Burns, starting toward home in the Imp at a +late hour in the morning, passed a figure on a corner of a +city street waiting for the outward-bound trolley. He slowed +down beside it. + +"May I take you home?" he asked, cap in hand, and interest +showing in eyes which a moment before had been heavy with +fatigue. + +Ellen Lessing looked up. "I shall be very glad," she +answered, as she met his outstretched hand and let it draw her +upward to the vacant seat. "The car is always so full at this +hour, and I was longing for the feeling of the wind against my +face" + +"It's cool for late August, and you'll get a breeze on the +road home that will refresh you. You haven't touched water or +milk in this plague-stricken district, I hope?" + +"No, indeed. Martha warned me a dozen times before I left. +How are things? Any better?" + +"No new cases in twenty-four hours, and the old ones well in +hand. I'm getting home earlier to-day than I've done for a +month, and hope to have a few hours off duty. I was planning +what to do with them as I came upon you." + +"I should think you could do nothing better with them than to +go home and sleep," she advised, looking up at his face with a +critical, friendly survey of the signs of weariness written +plainly there. "You are worn out, and that means something +when one says it of so strong a man as you." + +"I could sleep a week, but I'm not sure that a few hours would +more than aggravate my need. Besides, I shouldn't be at home +an hour before I should be called out again. No, my plans +were forming themselves differently, and now that I've met you +they're taking definite shape. I want - well - suppose I +don't tell you! Would you trust me to take you off on a +rest-seeking expedition without explaining what I mean to do?" + +"On a `rest-seeking expedition'?" she repeated. "Doctor +Burns, are you sure you hadn't better go on that alone? +Suppose I chatter all the way?" + +He smiled. "You're not a chatterer. And I don't want to go +alone. I haven't had a chance for an hour with you for a +month, I think. This is the only way I can get it. Will you +go?" + +"You provoke my curiosity. Yes, I think I'll go. I've been +shopping all the morning and I deserve a reward of rest, if +you're sure you know where to find it." + +He turned the Imp abruptly aside from the boulevard leading +out of town down which they had been speeding. He made a +detour of certain side streets which brought him up before a +small side establishment bearing a sign which set forth an +alluring invitation to motoring parties in need of food. He +disappeared therein, and was absent for the space of a full +twenty minutes. When he returned he was followed by a waiter +with a hamper to whose bestowal in the back of the car he +looked carefully. + +As they sped away again, Burns turned to his companion, a +smile of anticipation on his face, to meet a glance of some +apprehension. + +"You're not repenting your rash trust of me already, are you?" +he demanded. + +"I'm remembering that Martha has four guests at luncheon +to-day, and expects me to be there!" + +"Is that all? Don't let that worry you. We'll simply have a +breakdown somewhere on the road conveniently near to a spot I +know, where I can broil the beefsteak I have in that hamper, +and make the coffee. `Unavoidable detention' will be your +apology." + +"`Irresistible temptation' will be my confession," she +admitted. "I'm not good at subterfuge and I'm so hungry that +the mere mention of beefsteak out-of-doors - " + +"If it weighs against the plates and salads of a woman's +luncheon I shall have a great respect for you. Come on, let's +run away! You from social duties, I from professional ones. +I'll agree to stand out Martha in your defense. Unless, of +course, the opportunity to wear a pretty frock and throw all +the other women in the shade - " + +She laughed. "That's precisely what Martha wants me to do!" + +"Then fail her and let the other women win. It's too late to +repent, anyhow, for here's where we turn off." + +The Imp itself seemed to be running away, so swiftly and +silently it covered the new road leading off into the hills. +Presently it was climbing them. + +"I want to get where no call-boy monotonously repeating +'Doc-tor Bur-rns, Doc-tor Bur-rns', can get hold of me," the +Imp's driver explained. "I suppose you're not dressed - nor +shod - for a rough walk of a quarter of a mile where the car +can't go?" + +"I'll sacrifice skirts and soles," she promised. "Isn't the +air out here glorious? I thought I was tired when I left the +city: now I could climb that hill and enjoy it." + +"That's precisely what we'll do, then. There's a view from +the top worth the scramble, but I wasn't sure you'd be game +for it. Perhaps I'll know you better at the end of this +afternoon than I do now. Is there a jolly, athletic girl +hidden away under that demure manner of yours I've seen so +far, I wonder?" + +"Lead the way up that hill and you'll find out," she answered +with a challenging flash of her dark eyes. + +He lodged the Imp among a clump of pines, got out the hamper +and turned to his companion. She had pulled off her gloves, +removed hat and veil and folded her long, gray coat away in +the car. This left her dressed in the trim gray skirt of +walking length and the gray silk blouse she had worn for +shopping. Burns looked at her with approval. + +"Transformed by magic from a fashionable lady in street attire +to a girl ready for the woods," was his comment. "I'm glad +you leave off the hat - I'll match you by doffing the cap. +Now aren't we a pair? Are you in for a rush up that first +slope? Jove, I'm not half so tired as I was an hour ago, +already!" + +He caught her hand in his, his other arm through the hamper +handle, and ran with her up the slope. At the edge of the +steeper climb to come they stopped, breathing fast. "This +isn't the way to begin, of course," he admitted as they both +regained their breath, laughing at their own enthusiasm, "but +I couldn't resist that dash - a sort of dash for freedom. Now +we'll take it more easily." + +They worked their way up and up among the rocks, he always in +advance, reaching down a muscular right arm to help her at the +steeper places, and once giving her a knee to step on when +progress could be made only up the straight face of a big +boulder. It was undoubtedly a stiff climb for a woman, but +she showed no signs of flinching, and though her cheeks glowed +richly and her wavy black locks were a trifle loosened from +their usual order when at last she set foot upon the plateau +at the top, she showed only the temporary fatigue to be +expected after such unusual exertion. + +"That makes the blood course through one's arteries in a way +worth while," was his comment as he regarded with satisfaction +the splendid colour in her checks and the sparkle in her eyes. +"Talk about rest! That's the way to get it! Burn up the +products of fatigue, replace them with fresh cells full of +oxygen, and you get rejuvenation. Look at that stretch of +country before us! Isn't that worth the climb?" + +"It's glorious! I've often looked at this height as our car +drove by on the road over there, and wanted to climb it. But +Martha and Jim are always for reeling off miles, and so, I +thought, were you. I imagined there was nobody but myself to +care for this." + +"And I thought you liked the porch and the pretty clothes you +wear there better than anything I could show you in the open," +he owned with a laugh. "Not that I haven't enjoyed that porch +and the sight of the clothes - they don't seem to be just like +Martha's and Winifred's somehow, though I can't tell why! +I've wanted to ask you off for a trip like this, but never was +sure you'd enjoy it. I'm glad I've found out. I feel as if +I'd wasted the summer." + +He fell to gathering wood for his fire, and when she had +regained her breath she helped him in spite of his +remonstrance. "Let me have all the fun, too," she begged. "I +haven't had a chance like this for four years. I used to camp +in flannels all summer long, in the roughest sort of style, +and loved it dearly. I could stand the tension of a long +social winter twice as well as the other women on account of +it." + +He understood, knowing that her husband had occupied a +prominent official position which called upon him to maintain +a corresponding place in the society of the city in which they +had lived. Although he knew her to be still under thirty, he +realized that on account of her early marriage she had had +much experience in the world of affairs. It was this aspect +of her he had always borne in mind as he had seen her before. +Now he was beginning to recognize another side of her +character and tastes, a side which interested him even more +than the other had done. + +Like a pair of children they collected their firewood, racing +together to the base of operations with armfuls of dry sticks. +When there was a big pile she surprised him by asking to be +allowed to make the fire herself. + +"I'll prove to you I'm a woodsman," she asserted, and when she +had performed her task after the most approved fashion of the +skilled camper, he acknowledged that she had made good her +boast. As the smoke cleared away in the direction which left +the view unobscured and the spot he had selected for the +lunching-place free from smoke, he grinned approvingly. + +"I've no doubt you could grill the steak and brew the coffee +with equal skill," he admitted, "but I'm not going to let you. +That's my job. I want to prove my prowess. Sit down on that +log, please, and oversee me." + +She watched with hungry interest while he also gave evidence +of his craft. It could hardly be the first time that a hamper +had been packed for him at the place in the city, for nothing +he needed had been left out, even to a big bottle of spring +water with which to make the coffee. When his work was nearly +complete she spread a square of white linen upon a flat rock +and set forth the other contents of the hamper - olives and +bread and butter, crisp celery-hearts, and cream cheese and a +tin of biscuits. She heated the plates and cups before the +fire, and as he withdrew his steak from the coals she set a +smoking hot platter before him and offered him the materials +for seasoning. + +"You're a crack camper for sure," he declared. "Ah-h - does +that steak look fit for the gods, or not? How's the coffee? +Clear?" + +"Perfect. And the steak looks as if it would melt in one's +mouth. Oh, isn't this fun? How glad I am I'm here and not at +that luncheon!" She consulted a tiny watch. "It's two +o'clock -they're sitting down," she exulted. "Martha has +waited half an hour for me and given me up, and she's +perfectly furious. I'm wicked enough to feel that that fact +is going to make this meal taste all the better!" + +"Stolen steak and bread and butter eaten in secret have an +extra relish - no doubt of that. Here - this juicy bit is for +you to begin on. Set your teeth into it, partner! How's that +for food, I ask of you?" + +Sitting on the ground opposite each other with the flat rock +between, they consumed this Arcadian banquet, eating with the +zest born of exertion and the open air, the sunshine and the +comradeship. + +"Nothing has tasted quite so good to me in a year," said she +when the steak had vanished, dipping a white celery-heart in +salt and biting the end off with teeth still whiter. + +"Nothing ever tasted so good to me," said he, leaning on his +elbow and spreading a crisp biscuit with a layer of cheese. +"I always think that of each meal I eat in a place like this, +but this one seems to have a special flavour. I wonder if it +can be the company?" + +He smiled across at her, the sunshine among the pine needles +of the tree above him throwing flecks of bright copper among +the thick locks of his hair. + +"I think the company is usually an important part of all such +outings," she admitted frankly. "I never took one before in +the society of a wornout doctor who began to look like a boy +again before he had finished his coffee. I really shouldn't +know you were the same person who invited me to go on this +expedition." + +"There's nothing like it for renewing one, body and mind. +Actual physical repose isn't often the best cure for +weariness: it's change of thought and occupation, particularly +if the open air is a part of the cure. I've forgotten I have +a care in the world: all I can think of is - may I say it? - +yourself! I can't get over the wonder of seeing you turn from +what Bob calls his `pretty lady' into the girl I see before me +- a girl who looks about nineteen, with a capacity for good +sport in the open air I never dreamed of." + +"The open air would renew everybody's youth, I think, if +everybody would go to living out-of-doors. We're through, +aren't we? There isn't a crumb left! Now please go off and +let me clear up and pack away. That's always the woman's +part. Couldn't you lie down on that inviting carpet of +needles over there under the big pine and get a bit of sleep?" + +"Sleep - when I can talk to you?" + +She nodded. "Yes, indeed. I'm not going to talk just now, +anyhow, so you might as well make the best of it. Throw +yourself down with your hands under your head, and look up at +those beautiful boughs. Please!" + +Rather reluctantly h® obeyed, and she could see that, weary as +he undoubtedly still was in spite of the refreshing meal, he +really did not want to lose any of her society. Lying at full +length on his side, his head propped on his hand, talking in +the lazy tone of after-dinner content which had descended upon +him, he continued to watch her as she repacked the hamper. It +was not until she deliberately forsook him that he gave up to +her wishes. But when, having been out of his sight for ten +minutes, she peered cautiously through the bushes behind which +she had screened herself, she saw what she had hoped for. His +whole weary frame was stretched upon the pine-needle carpet, +the lines of his face were relaxed, and his eyes fast shut. + +The sun was far down the hills when he awoke. He lay blinking +at the low-sweeping boughs above him for a little without +realizing where he was; then, as the midsummer stillness which +surrounded him took hold of his senses, he turned his head to +recall to himself the conditions under which he had been +sleeping. Only the hamper under a tree close by gave evidence +that he was here by his own volition. He stared about, +remembering that be had had a companion. He got somewhat +stiffly to his feet, discovering as he did so that he had lain +for a long time without stirring from the position in which +slumber had overtaken him. + +"Mrs. Lessing!" he called. + +>From some distance away came back a blithe answer: "Here, +Doctor Burns!" + +He started in the direction of the voice and presently came +upon her sitting on a big granite boulder, busy with a lapful +of pine cones out of which she seemed to be constructing +something. She looked up, smiling. + +"Why in the world did you let me sleep all the afternoon?" he +reproached her. + +"I should have wakened you in ten minutes more. Have I made +you late for your work? I understood that you could afford a +few hours for rest. You've only slept three." + +"Three! Good heavens! When I might have been spending them +with you!" + +He looked so chagrined that her smile changed into outright +laughter. "You are very flattering. But I've been taking +much more satisfaction in your repose than I could possibly +have done in your society, no matter how brilliant you might +have been." + +"That's not flattering, but I admit it has its practical side. +Those three hours' sleep in the open air have put me on my +feet again. Just the same, I want to eat my cake and have it, +too! Promise me three consecutive hours of your company when +I'm awake, or I shan't get over regretting what I've missed. +Will you do this again with me some September day when I can +make the time?" + +"I promise with pleasure. I've had a charming afternoon all +by myself and wandered all over the hillside, dreaming +midsummer day-dreams. We must go, mustn't we?" She stood up, +her hands full of her work. + +"Tell me some of them, won't you, while we climb down to the +car?" he begged. + +"My happiest one," she said as they descended, "is the making +of a country home for little crippled children. I think I've +found the spot - the old Fairmount place - it's not more than +five miles from here. If I can only buy it at a reasonable +figure - " + +"Mrs. Lessing!" he broke in. "So that's the sort of thing +that makes your day-dreams! No wonder - well! - " + +"Why should you be surprised? Isn't that a delightful dream? +If I can only make it come true - " + +"You can. Do you want a visiting surgeon?" + +"Of course I do. Will you - " + +"Why, Mrs. Lessing," said he, stopping short just below her on +the steep path and looking up into her face with eyes of eager +pleasure, "that's been one of my dreams so long I can't +remember when I began to think about it. But I haven't been +able to finance it yet, nor to find time to get anybody else +to do it. If you'll provide the place I'll do everything I +can to make it a success. There are no less than four +children this minute I'm longing to get into such a home. +We'll go into partnership if you'll take me. I why - you see, +I can't even talk straight about it! And you - I thought you +were a society woman!" + +"I am a society woman, I suppose," she answered laughing, +"though our ideas might differ as to what that term stands +for. But why should that prevent my caring for this lovely +plan?" + +"Evidently it doesn't. How many sides have you anyhow? I've +found out two new ones to-day. Girl - and patron saint - " + +"Ah, don't make fun of me. I'm no girl and very far from any +kind of saint. Please help me down this four-foot drop as if +I were a very, very old lady, for my head is dizzy with joy +that I've found somebody to care for my schemes." + +He leaped down and held up his arms. "Come, grandma!" he +invited, his face full of mischief and enthusiasm and +happiness. + +"I think I'll play girl, after all," she refused gaily and, +accepting one hand only, swung herself lightly down to his +side. + +"And it's `bracers' the fellows think they need to put the +heart back into them!" jeered Red Pepper Burns to himself. +"Let them try the open country and a comrade like this - if +there is another anywhere on earth! But they can't have her!" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +IN WHICH HE CONTINUES TO SAW WOOD + +Here you are at last, Red, you sinner, and I'm the loser. +Ches and I've had a bet on since we saw the Green Imp tear off +just as the first guests were coming. I vowed it was a fake +call and you'd never get back till the musicians were +green-flannelling their instruments." + +"I knew he wouldn't do us a cut-away trick like that," +declared Arthur Chester with an affectionate, white-gloved +hand on Burns's black-clad arm. "Not that I'd have blamed you +on a night like this. What people want to give dances for in +August, with the thermometer at the top of the tree, I don't +know." + +"Go along in, old man, and see the ladies. Take out Pauline. +Mrs. Lessing isn't dancing. Make a sitting-out engagement +with the lovely widow, then bolt out here. That's my advice," +urged Macauley. + +"Much obliged, I will. Wouldn't have come if Winifred hadn't +cornered me." + +"She's doing her duty by Pauline, and she considers her duty +isn't done till she's secured the men Pauline wants. But I +say - when you get a look at Ellen you'll forget the rivulets +coursing down your neck. It's the first time she's worn +anything not suggestive of past experiences. It's only white +tonight, but - " Macauley's pause was eloquent. + +Burns pushed on into the house, through whose open doors and +windows came sounds of revelry. A stringed orchestra was +playing somewhere out of sight, and to its music the late +arrival, holding his head well up that he might keep his +collar intact until the latest possible moment, set his course +toward his hostess. + +Outside, in the bower which had been made of the porch, +Chester, disgracefully shuffling off the duties of host and +lounging with Macauley and two or three other of the young +married men, reported through the flower-hung window the +progress of the victim led to the sacrifice. + +"He's shouldered his way to Win - he's shaking hands and +trying not to look hot. Hi! Pauline's sighted him already. +She's making for him like the arrow to the target." + +"Or the bullet for the hippopotamus," suggested Macauley under +his breath in Chester's ear. He, too, began to reconnoiter. + +"He's asking her if she saved the first one for him, and she's +telling him she did till the last minute. Her card is full +now, but he shall have the last half of this next one. +Doesn't he look overjoyed?" Chester chuckled wickedly. + +"Where's Ellen? Why isn't she on deck now just as Red comes?" +Macauley began to fume. "She's behaved nobly all the evening +so far - she might have a rational being how for a partner as +her reward. But I presume she's sitting out somewhere with +that chump of a Wardlaw - he follows her like a shadow and +she's too kindhearted to shake him. She's - " + +A voice speaking softly from the lawn below the porch +interrupted him. "Is Doctor Burns urns here?" it asked. + +Chester went over to the rail. "He's only just come, you +know, Miss Mathewson. You don't have to call him out this +minute, do you?" + +"I'm sorry, Mr. Chester, but I'm afraid I must. The call is +very urgent." + +"Tell 'em to get somebody else." + +"Doctor Burns wouldn't like it - they're special friends of +his." + +"Oh, well - I suppose he'll see the bright side of getting out +of that Turkish bath in there, but I must say I wish I didn't +have to pull through this whole affair without his support," +grumbled Chester as he went in to find Burns, now disappeared +into the inner rooms where the music came from. + +Red Pepper came out looking the name more than usual, for +three rounds of the floor had brought, as it seemed to him, +every drop of blood to his face, and his hair clung damply to +his brow. He held a brief colloquy with his office nurse. + +"No way out; I'll have to go, Ches," said he with ill- +concealed joy." + +"But you'll hustle? You'll make one more try of it?" begged +Chester. "This thing won't break up early: not with Pauline +pushing it. You'll be back in time to be taken out and fed?" + +"Try to," and Burns disappeared off the end of the porch. + +"Lucky dog," gloomed Macauley. "The call's five miles out on +the road to the city. I'd like to be in the Green Imp for the +spin Red'll make of it. By George! I - " + +He broke off suddenly, gave a hasty look around and bolted off +the end of the porch into the semidarkness of the lawn. He +ran across behind the houses to his own back porch, procured a +dustcoat from within and dashed back, regardless of the bodily +heat he was generating. As the Green Imp backed out of the +barn Macauley swung himself into the unoccupied seat. + +Burns, also in dust-coat pulled on over his evening clothes, +grinned cheerfully. "Deserter?" he queried. + +"You'll be back within the hour, won't you?" + +"Less than that, probably. The Imp's running like a bird +to-night - show you her paces when we get out. Hi, there! +Who's that chasing us? Well, of all the - you, too, Ches?'' + +Panting, Chester flung himself upon the running-board just as +the car turned out of the yard. "Had a hunt for my coat - +nearly lost you!" he gasped. + +Burns stopped the car. "See here, sonny," he expostulated. +"You happen to be host, you know. I might be detained out +there, though I don't expect it." + +"I'll take the trolley back if you are," replied Chester, +settling himself. "I can't stand it to see you fellows cut +away out of the pow-wow and not go, too. I'll take my +chances." + +"So be it!" and, laughing, with a glance back at the gaily +lighted house, Burns sent the car on her course. "You two are +always bragging up the married life," he remarked as the Green +Imp gathered speed, "but it strikes me you're pretty eager to +get away from the glories of your wives' entertaining." + +"It's one curious thing," admitted Macauley thoughtfully, +"that no matter how harmonious a couple may be they're bound +to differ on what does and does not constitute entertainment." + +"Of course, a girl like Pauline always wants to dance, no +matter how torrid the night," explained Chester. "Win and I +have to consider our guest's wish. But you can bet Pauline +isn't getting her wish - not with R. P. Burns running around +the country all the evening and only making five-minute stops +at her side." + +By the speed with which the Green Imp swallowed the ground it +looked as if Burns might make several such trips and still +interpolate a number of "five-minute stops" before the affair +at the Chester house should be over. Before his passengers +were well aware of the distance they had covered he pulled up +in front of a small cottage. They settled themselves +comfortably to await a fifteen-minute stay, but in five he was +out again. Both dust coat and clawhammer were off - his +sleeves were rolled to the elbow. + +"I'm in for it, boys," he said. "Can't get away under two +hours at the shortest. Sorry. But they didn't let me know +what they wanted me for, and I'm caught. You'll have to drive +home. Call up Johnny Caruthers and let him bring back the Imp +and Miss Mathewson. I can't be spared long enough to go +myself, so take her this note to tell her what to bring. Get +busy, now. + +He handed Macauley a hasty scrawl on a prescription blank, and +smiled at the discomfited faces of his two friends showing +plainly in the lights which streamed from the house. + +"You look blamed pleased over your job," growled Macauley. + +"I like the job all right," admitted Burns; "particularly when +contrasted with - " + +"You wouldn't say it if you'd caught one glimpse of Mrs. L." +called back Chester, as the Imp responded somewhat erratically +to Macauley's unaccustomed touch. But all the answer they got +was, an emphatic "Don't change gears as if you were running a +thrashing machine, Mac." + +It was two hours and a half later that Burns came out of the +small cottage again, wiping a damp face, his white shirt-front +a pathetic ruin, his hastily reassumed white waistcoat and tie +decidedly the worse for having been carelessly handled. But +his face, when he turned it toward the stars as he crossed the +tiny patch of a flower-bordered yard, was a contented one. + +"It pays up all the arrears when you can leave a chunk of +happiness behind you as big as that one," he said to himself. +Johnny Caruthers had gone home by trolley long ago, and Miss +Mathewson was to remain for the night and return with the +doctor when he came for his morning after-visit. Burns sent +the Green Imp off at a moderate pace, musing as he drove +through the now moderated and refreshing air of two o'clock in +the morning. + +"Party must be about over by now; think it'll adjourn without +seeing any more of Red Pepper and his misused dress clothes," +he reflected. "I suppose those dancing puppets think they've +had a good time, but it isn't in it with mine. Bless the +little woman: she's happy over her first boy! He's a winner, +too. As for Tom, I could have tipped him over with a nod of +the head when he was thanking me for leaving the +merry-go-round to stand by. It must feel pretty good to be +the father of a promising specimen like that. Must beat the +adopting business several leagues. And that's not saying that +Bobby Burns isn't the best thing that ever happened to R. P." + +Philosophizing thus, he presently sent the Green Imp at her +quietest pace in at the home driveway. The Chester house was +still brilliantly illumined; his own dark except for the dim +light in the office and - he discovered it as he rounded the +turn - a sort of half-radiance coming from the windows of his +own room, where Bob slept in the small bed beside his own. +Burns gazed anxiously at this, for it showed that somebody had +turned on the hooded electric. He was accustomed to leave the +door open into his private office; in which a light was always +burning, and with this Bob had hitherto been satisfied. + +"He must have waked up and called for Cynthia," he decided. +Housing the Imp, he quietly crossed the lawn to the window, +avoiding any sound of footsteps on the gravelled paths. Both +windows, screened by wire and awnings, were wide open; he +could see with ease into the room, for the house was an old +one and stood low. Climbing wistaria vines wreathed the +windows, and sheltered by these he found himself secure from +observation. + +For after the first look he became exceedingly anxious not to +be discovered. He had come home in the stirred and gentle +mood often brought upon him by his part in such a scene as the +one he had lately left behind him. In the first wave of joy +swept by a birth into a home, whether humble or exalted, the +man who has been of service in the hour of trial is often +caught and lifted into a sympathetic pleasure which lasts for +some time after he has gone on to less satisfying work. Burns +had often jeered gently at himself for being, as he +considered, more than ordinarily susceptible to a sort of odd +tenderness of feeling under such conditions, and as he stared +in at the scene before him he was uneasily conscious that he +could not have come upon it at a more vulnerable moment. + +Bobby Burns was sitting straight up in bed, his cheeks +flushed, his eyelids reddened as if with prolonged crying, but +his small face radiant with happiness as he regarded his +companion, his plump little fist thrust tight into the hand +which held his. In a chair close beside him sat a figure in +silvery white; bare, beautifully-moulded arms, from which the +gloves had been pulled and flung aside upon the bed, gleaming +in the glow from the hooded light. + +Black head was close to black head, her black lashes and his +disclosed dark eyes curiously alike in the distracting glance +of them; even the colouring of the faces was similar, for both +showed the warm and peachy hues laid there by the summer sun. + +"They might easily be mother and son," was the thought forced +upon the spectator. His own cheek suddenly burned, in the +shadow of the wistaria vines. + +He listened abstractedly to the conclusion of the story: it +must have been a charming tale, for the boy's cry of regret +when it ended was eloquent. But the eavesdropper heard with +full appreciation the richness of the low voice and could not +wonder at Bob's delight in it. He watched with absorbed eyes +the embrace exchanged between the two and, forgetting to be +cautious, allowed his shifted foot to crunch the gravel under +the window. + +Quicker than thought the light went out. Burns made for the +office door, consumed with eagerness to catch her before she +could get away. But when he set foot upon the threshold of +his room only the little figure, pulling itself again erect in +the bed, met his eyes in the dim light issuing from the +office, and otherwise the room was empty. + +"Nobody heard me cryin' but her," explained Bob to his +questioning guardian. "Cynthia was all goned away and I heard +the fiddles and they made me cry. She comed in and told me +stories. I love her. But she wented awful quick out that +way." He pointed toward a French window opening like a door +upon the lawn. "I wish she didn't go so quick. She looked +awful pretty, all white and shiny. She loves me, I think, +don't you?" + +"Of course, old man. That's your particular good luck - eh? +Now lie down and go to sleep and tell me all about it in the +morning." + +"Aren't you going back to the party?" queried Bob anxiously. + +"Hardly." Burns glanced humorously down at his attire. "But +I'm not going to bed just yet, so shut your eyes. I'll not be +far away." + +The child obeyed. Exchanging the claw-hammer for his office +coat, Burns went out by way of the French window to the rear +of the house. + +An hour afterward Arthur Chester, putting out lights, +discovered from a back window a familiar figure at a familiar +occupation. But at this hour of the night the sight struck +him as so extraordinary that, curiosity afire, he hurriedly +let himself out of the side door he had just locked, and +crossed the lawn. + +"In the name of all lunatics, Red, why sawing wood? It can't +be ill temper at missing the show?" + +In the August moonlight the figure straightened itself and +laid down the saw. "Go to bed, and don't bother your addle +pate about your neighbours. Can't a man cut up a few sticks +without your coming to investigate?" + +"Saw a few more. You haven't got the full dose necessary +yet," advised Chester, his hands in his pockets. "Want me to +sit up with you till you work it all off?" + +"It's beginning to look as if it wouldn't work off," muttered +R. P. Burns. + +"Must be a worse attack than usual. How long have you been at +it?" + +"Don't know." + +"Sawed that whole heap at the side there?" + +"Suppose so." + +"Lost a patient?" + +"No." + +"Blow out a tire?" + +"No." + +"Bad news of any sort?" + +"No. Go to bed." + +"I feel I oughtn't to leave you," persisted Chester. "Don't +you think it might ease your mind to tell me about it?" + +Burns came at him with the saw, and Chester fled. Burns went +back to his woodpile, marshalled the sawed sticks into orderly +ranks, then stood still once more and once more looked up at +the stars. + +"If an hour of that on a night like this won't take the +nonsense out of me," he solemnly explained to a bright +particular planet now low in the heavens, "I must be past +help. But I'll be - drawn and quartered if I'll give in. +Haven't I had knockouts enough to be able to keep my head this +time? Red Pepper Burns, `Remember the Maine' Now, go to bed +yourself!" + + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +IN WHICH HE IS UNREASONABLY PREOCCUPIED + + +"Red Pepper Burns, put down that stuff and come over. It's +nine o'clock, and Pauline goes tomorrow, as you very well +know. And not only Paul, but Mrs. Lessing. Paul's persuaded +her to start when she does, though she wasn't expecting to go +for three days longer." + +R. P. Burns looked up abstractedly. "Can't come now. I'm +busy," he replied, and immediately became reabsorbed in the +big book he was studying. + +Chester gazed at him amazedly. He sat at the desk in the +inner office, surrounded by books, medical magazines, foreign +reviews in both French and German, as Chester discovered on +approaching more closely, by loose anatomical plates, by +sheets of paper covered with rough sketches of something it +looked more like a snake in convulsions than anything else. +Evidently Burns was deep in some sort of professional +research. + +It was not that the sight was an unaccustomed one. There +could be no question that R. P. Burns, M.D., was a close +student; this was not the first nor the fortieth time that his +friend had thus discovered him. The view to be had from the +point where Chester stood, of the small laboratory opening +from this office, was also a familiar one. He could see steam +arising from the sterilizer: he knew surgical instruments were +boiling merrily away there. A table was littered with objects +suggesting careful examination: a fine microscope in position; +a centrifuge, Bunsen burners, test-tubes; elsewhere other +apparatus of a description to make the uninitiated actively +sympathetic with the presumable coming victim. + +The point of the situation to Chester was that astonishing +fact that Burns could hear unmoved of the immediate departure +of Ellen Lessing. He made up his mind that this scientific +enthusiast could not have assimilated the dreadful news; he +would try again. + +"Red! Do you hear? She's going to-morrow - tomorrow!" + +"Let her go. Don't bother me." + +"I don't mean Pauline. Ellen's going, too." + +Burns put up one sinewy hand and thrust it through his hair, +which already stood on end. His collar was off and he wore a +laboratory apron: his appearance was not prepossessing. He +pulled a piece of paper toward him and began to make rapid +lines. It was the snake again, in worse convulsions than +before. Evidently he had not heard. Chester approached the +desk. + +"Red!" he shouted. "The patient isn't on the table yet: he +won't die if you listen to me one minute. I want you to take +this thing in. Mrs. Lessing - " + +Knocking the sketch to one side and precipitating three books +and a mass of papers to the floor, Red stood up. He towered +above his shrinking fiend, wrath in his eye. His lips moved. +If it had been three months earlier Chester would have +expected to hear language of a lurid description. As it was, +the first syllable or two did slip out, but no more followed. +Only speech - good, vigorous Saxon, not to be misunderstood. + +"Will you try to get it into your brain that I don't care a +hang who goes or where, so long as I figure out a way to do +this trick? The other fellows all say it can't be done. Not +one of 'em'll do it, not even Van Horn. I say it can, and I'm +going to do it to-morrow morning at nine o'clock, if I can +work out a tool to do it with and make it. And I can do that +if idiots like you will get out and keep out." + +He sat down and was instantly lost again in his effort at +invention. Chester looked at him in silence for a minute +more, then he walked quietly out. Offended? Not he. He had +not listened to invective from that Celtic tongue for eight +years not to know that high tension over a coming critical +operation almost invariably meant brilliant success. But even +he had never seen Red Pepper keyed up quite so taut as this. +It must be a tremendous risk he meant to take. Success to him +- the queer, fine old boy! + +"He may be over later when he gets that confounded snake of an +instrument figured out." Chester offered this to the group +upon his porch as consolation. + +"And if he doesn't get it figured out before we break up, he +won't be over," prophesied Macauley. "Ten to one he forgets +to come and say good-bye before he starts for the hospital in +the morning." + +"I'm going to be standing beside the driveway when he goes," +vowed Pauline. "And if he doesn't notice me I'll climb on the +car." + +"Ellen, don't go to-morrow," whispered Martha Macauley to her +sister. "Don't let it end this way. When he comes to, you'll +be gone, and that's such a pity just now." + +"But I think I would rather be gone, dear." Ellen Lessing +whispered back. + +"Oh, why? When Red's excited over a big success he's simply +off his head - there's no knowing what he won't do." + +"I prefer him when he has his head. Don't urge, Martha. I've +promised to go in the morning with Pauline, and nothing could +make me change." + +"It's a shame for him to be so absorbed. Who wants a man who +can forget the existence of a woman like that?" + +"Who wants one who can't? A sorry surgeon he'd be - his hand +would shake. Don't talk about it any more, dear. I'm going +to enjoy this evening with you all. And I hope - oh, how I +hope - that operation will be a success!" + +If it were not to be a success it would not be the fault of +the man who worked till one o'clock - two o'clock - three +o'clock it the morning to perfect the strangely convoluted +tool which was to help "do the trick" if it could be done. +Part of the work was done in the laboratory, part in the +machine shop which occupied a corner of the old red barn, +where the Green Imp lent her lamps as aids to the task in +hand. At four, the instrument finished, sterilized, and put +away as if it were worth its weight in gold - which it might +easily have been if it were to prove fitted to the peculiar +need - Burns went to bed. At six he was up again, had a cold +plunge and a hearty breakfast, and at seven was sending the +Imp out of the gateway, his office nurse beside him. If Mrs. +Lessing hoped the operation would be a success, Miss Mathewson +hoped and feared and longed with all her soul. Beneath the +uniform and behind the quiet, plain face of the young woman +who had been R. P. Burns's professional assistant for eight +years, lived a person than whom none cared more how things +went with him. But nobody knew that least of all Burns +himself. He only knew that he could not get on without her; +that never a suture that she had prepared made trouble for him +after an operation: and that none other of the hundred nice +details upon which the astounding results of modern surgery +depend was likely to go wrong if it were she who was +responsible. + +At five o'clock that afternoon the Green Inn came back. +Arthur Chester had just returned from the office and had +thrown himself into a hammock on the porch, for the September +weather was like that of June. Catching the throbbing purr of +the Imp as the car swung in at the driveway Chester jumped up. +Burns flung out a triumphant arm; Miss Mathewson was smiling. + +"By George, the old boy's won out!" Chester said to himself, +and hurried down to meet the Imp. "All over but the shouting, +Red?" he questioned eagerly. + +"All over." Burns's face was aflame. + +"Pull up and tell me about it." + +The car came to a standstill. "Nothing to tell. The curve I +got on that bit of steel did the work, around the corner and +inside out. The fellows said it wouldn't; stood around and +croaked for an hour beforehand. Lord! I'd have died myself +before I'd have failed after that." + +"Should have thought they'd have unsettled your nerve," +declared Chester, looking as if he would like personally to +pitch into the entire medical profession. + +"Didn't. Just made me mad. I can do anything when I'm mad - +if I can keep my mouth shut." Burns laughed rather +shamefacedly. "That's the one advantage of a temper. I say, +Ches, don't you want to go with me? There are probably half a +dozen calls waiting at the office. I'll run and see." + +He jumped out, seized his surgical handbags and hurried away. +Miss Mathewson descended more deliberately, Chester plying her +with eager questions as he assisted her. "How was it? Pretty +big feather in his cap, Miss Mathewson?" + +"Indeed it was, Mr. Chester. Every one of the other city +surgeons said it couldn't be done without killing the patient. +They all admitted that if she survived the operation she would +have every chance for recovery. They were all there to see. +I never knew them all there at once before." + +"It would be ungenerous to imagine they wanted him to fail," +chuckled Chester, "but we're, all human. How did they take it +when he succeeded?" + +""They remembered they were gentlemen and scientists," +declared Miss Mathewson - "all but one or two who aren't worth +mentioning. When they saw he had done it, they began to clap. +I don't believe there was ever such a burst of applause in +that surgery." + +"What did the old fellow do? Tried to look modest, I +suppose," laughed Chester, glowing with pride and pleasure. + +"He was white all through the operation - he always is, with +the strain. But he turned red all over when they cheered, and +just said: `Thank you, gentlemen.' It really was a wonderful +thing, Mr. Chester, even in these days. Only one man has done +it, a German, and he has done it only twice. Doctor Burns +will be distinguished after this." + +"Good for him! No wonder he looks the way he does - as if +he'd like to turn a few handsprings," Chester reflected as he +watched the nurse's trim figure walk away. + +Burns came back. "Jump in," he said. "Work enough to keep me +busy till bedtime. If there hadn't been, I'd have proposed a +beefsteak in the woods by way of a celebration and a let down. +I'm beginning to get a bit of reaction, of course; should have +liked an hour or two of jollity. You and Win, and Mrs. +Lessing and I might have - " + +"Mrs. Lessing! You old chump, don't you remember she's gone? +Why, Mac started for the train with them all in his car, not +ten minutes before you came. They haven't been gone fifteen. +I begged off from going along because I was dusty and tired. +Just got home myself," + +R. P. Burns, making the circuit of the driveway behind the +houses and now turning the Imp's nose toward the street again, +stared at his friend in amazement. + +"Why, she wasn't going till day after to-morrow!" he +exclaimed. + +"I came over last night," drawled Chester in a longsuffering +tone, "and explained to you and shouted at you and tried in +every way to ram the idea into your head that Pauline had +wheedled Mrs. Lessing to start when she did, because their +routes lay together as far as Washington. You put me out, +calling me names and generally insulting me. It's all right, +of course. She's to spend the winter in South Carolina, but +she'll be back next summer. You can say good-bye to her then. +It'll do just as well." + +Burns's watch was in his hand. "What time does that train +go?" he demanded. + +"Five-thirty. You can't make it." Chester's watch was also +out. "What do you care? Send her a picture postcard +explaining that you forgot all about her until it was too - " + +The last word was jerked back into his throat by the jump of +the Green Imp. She shot out of the driveway like a stone out +of a catapult, and was off down the mile road to the station, +All conveyances going to that train had passed quarter-hour +before, and the course was nearly clear. + +"There's the train's smoke at the tunnel. You can't do it," +asserted Chester, pointing to the black hole a few rods to one +side of the station whence a gray cloud was issuing. "She +only makes a two minute stop. You won't more than get on +board before - " + +"If I get on board you drive into the city and meet me there, +will you?" begged Burns. + +"I can't drive the Imp, Red; you know I can't." + +"Then 'phone Johnny Caruthers from the station and send him in +for me. That'll give me fifteen minutes on the train." + +"What's the use? Pauline'll be at your elbow every minute. +She'll - " + +But Burns was paying no attention. He wag taking the Imp past +a lumbering farm-wagon with only two inches to spare between +himself and the ditch. Then the car was at the station, Burns +was out and through the building, through the gate and upon +the slowly-moving train after a moment's hasty argument with a +conductor to whom he could show no ticket. On the platform +James Macauley, junior, and Martha Macauley, Winifred Chester, +and four small children of assorted ages stared after the big +figure bolting into the Pullman. Bobby Burns gave a shriek of +delight followed by a wail of disappointment. + +"By George, he's turned up, after all!" exulted Macauley, and +the two women looked at each other with meaning, relieved +glances. + +In the car, the passengers observed interestedly the spectacle +of a large man with a mop of fiery red hair, from which he had +pulled a leather cap, striding, dust-covered, into the car and +up to the two prettiest young women there. One of these very +smartly clad in blue, received him with looks half gay, half +pouting, and with a storm of talk. The other, in gray, with a +face upon which no eye could rest once without covertly or +openly returning in deference to its charm, gave him a quiet +hand and turned away again to wave her farewell to the group +of friends on the platform + +"Take my chair and I'll perch on the arm of Ellen's," +commanded Pauline," while you explain, apologize and try to +make your peace with us. You'll find it hard work. I may +smile for the sake of appearances, but inside I'm really +awfully angry. So is Ellen, though she doesn't show it." + +Thus Pauline, indefinitely prolonged and repeated, with +variations, interpolations, interruptions. It didn't matter; +Redfield Pepper Burns heard none of it. Even with Pauline +"perching" on the arm of Ellen Lessing's chair, her face +within eight inches of the other face, she was not within the +field of his vision. + +"I am sure the operation was successful," said Mrs. Lessing. + +"One can see it in his eyes," declared Pauline. "I never knew +hazel eyes could be so brilliant°' + +"It went through," admitted Burns. "It had to, you know. And +I had a thing to make last evening " + +"Arthur told us about it," chattered Pauline. "It was like a +sna - " + +"You didn't miss my not coming over," said Burns. He was +leaning forward, his hands on his knees, his rumpled head near +enough so that very low tones could reach the person to whom +he spoke. He did not once look at Pauline. One would have +thought that that fact alone would have quieted her, but it +did not. + +"Indeed we did - awfully!" cried Pauline. + +"Neither did I myself, then, Mrs. Lessing. I miss it now. I +shall miss it more whenever I think about it. I don't know of +but one thing that can possibly make it up to me. " + +"Name it! You don't deserve it, but our hearts are rather +tender, and we might grant - " Pauline looked arch. But what +was the use? Nobody saw. Even the passengers were watching +the one in gray. Spectators always watch the woman at whom +the man is looking. And in this case it seemed well worth +while, for even the most admirable reserve of manner could not +control the tell-tale colour which was slowly mounting under +the direct and continued gaze of the man with the red hair. +The man himself, it occurred to more than one passenger, was +rather well worth study. + +"It's always been a theory of mine that no woman can know a +man until she's exchanged letters with him for a considerable +period of time - say, a winter," Burns went on. Pauline, made +some sort of an exclamation, but he failed to notice it - +"Neither can a man know a woman. It's a stimulating +experience. Suppose we try it?" + +"How often do you propose to write to us?" inquired Pauline. + +Now, at last, Red Pepper Burns looked at her. If she had +known him better, she would have known that all his vows to +keep his tongue from certain words were at that moment very +nearly as written in water. But the look he gave her stung +her for an instant into silence. + +"I shall want to hear about Bob," Ellen replied, "all you can +tell me. I have promised to write to him. You will have to +read the letters aloud to him - which will give you a very +fair idea of what I am doing. But if you care for an extra +sheet for yourself - now and then - " + +"An extra sheet! When I am in the mood I am likely to write a +dozen sheets to you. When I'm not, a page will be all you'll +care to read. Will you agree to the most erratic +correspondence you ever had, with the most erratic fellow?" + +"It sounds very promising," she answered, smiling. + +The train drew into the city station. The stop was a short +one, for the Limited was late. In the rush of outgoing and +incoming passengers Burns managed, for the space of sixty +seconds, to get out of range of Pauline's ears. + +"I shall count the hours till I get that first letter," said +he. + +She looked up. "You surely don't expect a letter till you +have sent one?" + +He laughed. "I'm going home to begin to write it now," he +said. + +Pauline accompanied him to the vestibule where he shook hands +with her forgivingly. From the platform he secured a last +glimpse of the other face, which gave him a friendly smile as +he saluted with his dusty leather cap held out toward her at +the length of his arm. When he could no longer see her he +drew a gusty sigh and turned away. + +As he stood at the street entrance of the big station, waiting +for Johnny Caruthers and the Green Imp, this is what he was +saying to himself: + +"Red, you've made more than one woman unhappy, to say nothing +of yourself, by making love to her because she was a beauty +and your head swam. This time you've tried rather hard to do +her the justice to wait till you know. Only time and absence +can settle that. Remember you found a nest of gray hairs in +your red pate this morning? That should show that you're +gaining wisdom at last, the salt in the red pepper, `the +seasoning of time,' eh, R. P.? But by the rate of my pulse at +this present moment I'm inclined to believe - it's going to be +a bit hard to write an absolutely sane letter. Perhaps it +would be safer if I knew Pauline Pry would see it! I'll try to +write as if I knew she would . . . . But by the spark I +thought I saw in those black eyes I don't really imagine +Pauline will!" + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +IN WHICH HE SUFFERS A DEFEAT + + +The hands of the office clock were pointing to half after two, +on a certain September night, when Burns came into his office, +alone. The fire in the office fireplace, kept bright until +nearly midnight, when his housekeeper had given up waiting for +him and gone to bed, had burned to a few smouldering lumps of +cannel-slag. A big leather easy-chair, its arms worn with +much use, had been pulled into an inviting position before the +fireplace, and the night-light by the desk was burning, as +usual. All that could be expected had been done by the +kind-hearted Cynthia, who comprehended, by signs she knew well +and had been watching for several days, that affairs were +going wrong with her employer. + +But he needed more than could be given him by things inanimate +- needed it woefully. He came in as a man comes who is not +only physically' weary to the point of exhaustion, but heart +sick and sore besides. He dropped his heavy surgical bags +upon the floor by the desk as if he wanted never to take them +up again, pulled off coat and cap and let them fall where they +would, then stumbled blindly over to the big chair and sank +into it with a great sigh, as if he had reached the end of all +endeavour. + +If it had been physical fatigue alone which had brought him to +this pass he might have dropped asleep where he sat, and +waked, after an hour or two, to drag himself away to bed, like +one who had been drugged. For a short space, indeed, he lay +motionless in the chair in the attitude of one so spent for +sleep that he must needs find it in the first place his body +touches. But there are times when the mind will not let the +body rest. And this was one of them. + +The scene he had left lately was burning before his tired +eyes; the sounds he had lately heard were beating in his +brain. For a week he had been putting every power he +possessed into the attaining of an end for which it had more +than once seemed to him that he would be willing to sacrifice +his own life. He had dared everything, fought every one, had +his own way in spite of every obstacle, believing to the last +that he could win, as he had so often won before, by sheer +contempt of danger. But this time he had failed. + +That was all there was of it - he had failed, failed so +absolutely, so humiliatingly, so publicly - this was the way +he put it to himself - that he was in disgrace. He had +operated when others advised against operation and had seemed +to succeed, brilliantly and incredibly. Then the case had +begun to go wrong. He had operated a second time - against +all precedent, taking tremendous risks - and had lost. + +But this was not the worst. He had lost cases before and had +suffered keenly over them, but not as he was suffering now. +In a world of death some cases must be lost, even by the most +successful of all of his profession. But this was an unusual +case. This was - O God how could he bear losing this one? + +He had known her from a little girl of eight till now, when at +sixteen, bright, beautiful, winsome sixteen, he had . . . +what had he done? She might have had a chance for life - +without operation. He had taken that chance away. And she +had trusted him - how she had trusted him! Ah, there was the +bitter drop in the cup the turn of the knife in the raw wound. +When the others had opposed, she had looked up at him with +that smile of hers - how could she smile when she was in such +pain? - and whispered: "Please do whatever you want to, Doctor +Burns." And he had answered confidently: "Good for you, +Lucile - if only they'd all trust me like that I'd show them +what I could do!" + +Vain boast - wild boast! He had d been a fool - twice a fool +- thrice a fool! He was a fool clear through - that was the +matter with him - a proud fool who had thought that with a. +thrust of his keen-edged tools he could turn Death himself +aside. + +And when he had tried his hand a second time, in the last +futile effort to avert the impending disaster, she had trusted +him just the same. When he had said to her, speaking close to +her dull ear: "Dear little girl, I'm going to ask you to go to +sleep again for me," she had turned her head upon the pillow, +that tortured young head - he would not have thought she could +move it at ail - and had smiled at him again . . . for the +last time . . . He would remember that smile while he lived. + +He got up from his chair as the intolerable memory smote him +again, as it had been smiting him these three hours since the +end had come. He began to pace the floor, back and forth back +and forth. There were those who said that R. P. Burns threw +off his cases easily, did not worry about them, did not take +it to heart when they went wrong. It is a thing often said of +the men who must turn from one patient to another, and show to +the second no hint of how the first may be faring. Those who +say it do not know - can never know. + +The hours wore on. Burns could not sleep, could not even +relax and rest. To the first agony of disappointment +succeeded a depression so profound that it seemed to him he +could never rise above it and take up his work again. A +hundred times he went painfully over the details of the case, +from first to last. Why had he done as he had? Why had he +not listened to Grayson, to Van Horn, to Fields? Only Butler +had backed him up in his decisions - and he knew well enough +that Butler had done it only because of his faith in Burns +himself and his remembrance of some of his extraordinary +successes, not because his own judgment approved. + +Five o'clock - six o'clock - he had thrown himself into the +chair again, and had, at last, dropped into an uneasy sort of +half slumber, when the office door quietly opened and Miss +Mathewson came in. It was two hours before she was due. +Burns roused and regarded her wonderingly, with eyes heavy and +blood-shot. She stood still and looked down at him, sympathy +in her face. She herself was pale with fatigue and loss of +sleep, for she had been with him throughout the week of +struggle over the case he had lost, and she knew the situation +as no one else, even his professional colleagues, knew it. +But she smiled wanly down at him, like a pitying angel. + +"You didn't go to bed, Doctor," she said, very gently. "I was +afraid you wouldn't. Won't you go now? You know there's a +day's work before you." + +He shook his head. "No - I'd rather get out in the air. I'm +going now. I'd like to take the Imp and - drive to - " " + +"No, no!" - She spoke quickly, coming closer, as if she +understood and would not let him use the reckless, common +phrase which sometimes means despair. "I thought you might be +feeling like that - that's why I came early. Not that I can +say anything to cheer you, Doctor Burns - I know you care too +much for that. But there's one thing you must realize - you +must say it over and over to yourself - you did your best. No +human being can do more." + +"A fool's best," he muttered. "Cold comfort that." + +"Not a fool's best -a skilful surgeon s best." + +He shook his head again, got slowly up from his chair, and +stood staring down into the ashes of the long-dead fire. The +usually straight shoulders were bent; the naturally +well-poised head, always carried confidently erect, was sunk +upon the broad chest. + +Amy Mathewson watched him for a minute, her own face full of +pain; then laid her hand, rather timidly, upon his arm. He +looked round at her and tried to smile, but the effort only +made his expression the more pitiful. + +"Bless your heart," said he, brokenly, "I believe you'd stand +by me to the last ditch of a failure." + +Her eyes suddenly filled. "I'd let you operate - on my mother +- to-day," said she, in a low voice. + +He gazed into her working face for a long moment, seized her +hand and wrung it hard, then strode away into the inner office +and flung the door shut behind him. + +A half-hour later he came out. He had himself sternly in hand +again. His shoulders were squared, his head up; in his face +was written a peculiar grim defiance which those who did not +comprehend might easily mistake for the stoicism imputed to +men of his calling under defeat. Miss Mathewson knew better, +understood that it was taking all his courage to face his work +again, and realized as nobody else could that the day before +him would be one of the hardest he had yet had to live. But +she was hopeful that little by little he would come back to +the same recognition of that which she felt was really true, +that, in spite of the results, he had been justified in the +risk he had taken, and that he could not be blamed that +conditions which only a superhuman penetration could have +foreseen would arise to thwart him. + +"Cynthia has your breakfast ready for you Doctor," Miss +Mathewson said quietly, as he came out. She did not look up +from the desk, where she was working on accounts. But as he +passed her, on his way to the dining-room, he laid his hand +for an instant on her shoulder, and when she looked up she met +his grateful eyes. She had given him the greatest proof of +confidence in her power, and it had been the one ray of light +in his black hour. + +"Won't you take just a taste o' the chops, Doctor?" urged his +housekeeper, anxiously. She knew nothing of the situation, +but she had not served him for eight years not to have learned +something of his moods, and it was clear to her that he had +had little sleep for many nights. + +But he put aside the plate. "I know they're fine, Cynthia," +said he in his gentlest way. "But the coffee's all I want, +this morning. Another cup, please." + +Cynthia hesitated, a motherly sort of solicitude in her homely +face. "Doctor, do you know you've had four, a'ready? And +it's awful strong." + +"Have I! Well - perhaps that's enough. Thank you, Cynthia." + +His housekeeper looked after him, as he left the room. "He's +terrible blue, to be so polite as that," she reflected. "When +he's happy he's in such a hurry he don't have time to thank a +body. Of the two. I guess I'd rather have him hustlin' +rude!" + +In the middle of the day Burns met Van Horn. + +"Sorry the case went wrong, Doctor," said his colleague. +There was a peculiar sparkle in his eye as he offered this +customary, perfunctory condolence. + +"Thank you," replied Burns, shortly. + +"I didn't wish to seem skeptical, and you certainly have had +remarkable success in somewhat similar cases. But it seemed +to me that in advising as I did I was holding the only safe +ground. Personally I'm not in favour of taking chances and in +this case it seemed to me they were pretty slim." + +"They were." + +"I did my best to assure the family that you were within your +rights." + +"Much obliged." + +"I don't blame you for feeling broken up about it," declared +the other man, soothingly. "But we all have to learn by +experience, and conservatism is one of the hardest lessons." + +An ugly light was growing in Red Pepper's eye. He got away +without further words. Only last week Van Horn had been +helped out of a serious and baffling complication by Burns +himself, and no credit given to the rescuer. From him this +sort of high and mighty sympathy was particularly hard to +bear. + +Around the corner he encountered Grayson. This, as it was so +little to be desired, was naturally to be expected. + +"Too bad, Doctor," Grayson began, stopping to shake hands. +Van Horn had not even shaken hands. "I hoped till the last +that we were all wrong and you were right. But that heart +seemed dangerously shaky to me, though I know you didn't think +so." + +"I didn't." + +"There was a queer factor in the case, one I felt from the +first, though I couldn't put my finger on it. It was the +thing that made me advise against operation." + +"I understand." + +"But of course there's no use crying over spilt milk; you did +your best," continued Grayson cheerfully. "Pretty little girl +- plucky, too. Sorry to see her go." + +Burns nodded - and bolted. These Job's comforters - were they +trying to make the thing seem even more unbearable than it +already was? Certainly they were succeeding admirably. He +went on about his work with set teeth, expecting at the next +turn to run into Fields. He would undoubtedly find him at the +hospital, ready to greet him with some croaking sympathy. +True to his expectations Fields met him at the door. He +himself was looking particularly prosperous and cheerful, as +people have a way of appearing to us when our trouble is root +theirs. + +"Good morning, Doctor." Fields shook hands, evidently trying +to modify his own demeanour of unusual good cheer over a list +of patients all safely on the road to ultimate recovery. "I +want to express my regret over the way things came out last +night. Mighty pretty operation - if it had succeeded. Sorry +it didn't. Better luck next time." + +"Much obliged." Burns had a bull-dog expression now. Not the +most discerning observer would have imagined he felt a twinge +of regret over his failure. + +"Would you mind telling me what made you so confident that the +spleen had nothing to do with the complication?" Fields +inquired in a deprecatory manner which made Burns long to +twist his neck. + +"Did you suggest that it did - beforehand?" + +"I believe I did - if I remember." + +"I believe you didn't - nor any other man till I got in and +found it. You all observed it then - and so did I. Excuse me +- I'm in too much of a hurry to stop to discuss the case now. +I'm due upstairs." And once more Burns made good his escape. + +"Sore," was Field's verdict, looking after the man who had +been his successful rival for so long that this exception +could hardly fail to afford a decided, if rather shame-faced +satisfaction to a brother surgeon not above that quite human` +sentiment. + +But in the course of the day Burns met Buller. He had dreaded +to meet him, but not for the same reason that he had dreaded +the others. Meeting Buller was quite another story. + +"Old boy, I'm so sorry I could cry, if it would do you any +good," said Buller, his steady, honest gaze meeting his +friend's miserable eyes. For the defiance had melted out of +Burns's aspect and left it frankly wretched before the hearty +friendship in this man's whole attitude; friendship which +could be counted upon, like that of his office nurse's, to the +end of all things. + +Burns swallowed hard, making no reply, because he could not. +But his hand returned the steady pressure of Butler's in a way +that showed he was grateful. + +"I knew you'd take it hard - much harder than common. And, of +course, I understand why. Any man would. But I wish I could +make you feel the way I do about it. There's not one particle +of reason for you to blame yourself. I've thought the case +over and over from start to finish, and I'm more and more +convinced that she wouldn't have lived without the operation. +You gave her her only chance. Take that in? I mean it. I +went around there this morning and told the family so - I took +that liberty. It was a comfort to them, though they believed +anyway. They haven't lost a particle of faith in you." + +Burns bit his lip till he had it under control, and could get +out a word or two of gratitude. + +"And now I want a favour of you," the other went on hurriedly. +"A case I want you to see with me - possible operation within +a day or two." + +Burns hesitated an instant, changing colour. Then: "Are you +sure you'd better have me?" he asked, a trifle huskily. + +The other looked him in the eye. "Why not? I know of nobody +so competent. Come, man put that Satan of unreasonable +self-reproach behind you. When man becomes omniscient and +omnipotent there'll be no errors in his judgment or his +performance - and not before. Meanwhile we're all in the soup +of fallibility together. I - I'm not much at expressing +myself elegantly: but I trust I'm sufficiently forcible," +smiled Buller. "Er - will you meet me at four at my office? +We'll go to the Arnolds' together, and I'll give you the +history of the case on the way. It's a corker, I assure you, +and it's keeping me awake nights." + +Proceeding on his way alone in the Imp he had not wanted even +Johnny Caruthers's company to-day Burns found the heaviness of +his spirit lifting slightly very slightly. Tenderness toward +the little lost patient who had loved and trusted him so well +began gradually to usurp the place of the black hatred of what +he felt to be his own incompetency. Passing a florist's shop +he suddenly felt like giving that which, as it had occurred to +him before, had seemed to him would be only a mockery from his +hands. He went in and selected flowers - dozens and dozens of +white rosebuds, fresh and sweet - and sent them, with no card +at all, to her home. + +Then he drove on to his next patient, to find himself +surrounded by an eager group of happy people, all rejoicing in +what appeared to them to be a marvelous deliverance from a +great impending danger, entirely due to his own foresight and +skill. He knew well enough that it way Nature herself who had +come to the rescue, and frankly told them so. But they +continued to thrust the honour upon him, and be could but come +away with a softened heart. + +"I'll go on again," he said to himself. "I've got to go on. +Last night I thought I couldn't, but, of course, that's +nonsense. The best I can God knows I try . . . And I'll +never make that mistake again . . . But oh! - little Lucile - +little Lucille!" + + + +CHAPTER X + +IN WHICH HE PROVES HIMSELF A HOST + + +"Winifred," said R. P. Burns, invading Mrs. Arthur Chester's +sunny living-room one crisp October morning, leather cap in +hand, "I'm going to give a dinner to-night. Stag dinner for +Grant, of Edinburgh - man who taught me half the most +efficient surgery I know. He's over here, and I've just found +it out. Only been in the city two days: goes to-morrow." + +"How interesting, Red! Where do you give it? At one of the +clubs or hotels in town?" + +"That's the usual thing, of course. That's why I'm not going +to do it. Grant's a rugged sort of commonsense chap - hates +show and fuss. He gets an overpowering lot of being +`entertained' in precisely the conventional style. He's a +pretty big gun now, and he can't escape. When I told him I +was going to have him out for a plain dinner at home he looked +as relieved as if I'd offered him a reprieve for some +sentence." + +"Undoubtedly he'll enjoy the relaxation. Hut you'll have a +caterer out from town, I suppose?" + +"Not on your life. Cynthia can cook well enough for me, and I +know Ronald Grant's tastes like a book. But what I want to +ask is that you and Martha Macauley will come over and see +that the table looks shipshape. Cynthia's a captain of the +kitchen, but her ideas of table decoration are a trifle too +original even for me. Miss Mathewson's away on her vacation. +I'll send in some flowers. My silver and china are nothing +remarkable, bur as long as the food's right that doesn't +matter." + +"I shall be delighted to do it for you, Red, as you know. So +will Martha. We - " + +"Thanks immensely. I want Ches of course, and Jim Macauley's +coming. The rest are M, D.'s. I must be off." + +He would have been off, without doubt, in an instant more, for +he was half out of the door as he spoke, but Winifred Chester +flew after him and laid an insistent hand on his coat sleeve. + +"Red! You must stop long enough to tell me something about +it. How can I help you unless I know your plans? What hour +have yon set? How many are coming, and who? How many courses +are you going to have? Have you engaged a waitress?" + +Red Pepper looked bewildered. "Is there all that to it?" he +inquired helplessly. "How in thunder - I beg your pardon - +how do I know how many courses there'll be? Ask Cynthia that. +The hour's seven-thirty; can't get around earlier, even if I +wanted to be less formal. There's Van Horn and Buller and +Fields and Grayson and Grant and Ches and Jim and - and +myself. I may have asked somebody else, seems as if did but I +can't remember. You'd better put on an extra plate in case I +have." + +He was starting off again, but Winifred, laughing helplessly, +again detained him. "Red, you're too absurd! What about the +waitress? Shall I find one for you?" + +"I supposed Cynthia could serve us; she always does me." + +"She can't to-night, and prepare things to send in, too." + +"Oh, well, see to it if you'll be so kind; only let me go, for +I've only fifteen minutes now to meet a consultant ten miles +away. Good-bye, Win," + +He took time to turn and smile at her, and for the sake of the +smile - she knew of none other just like it - she forgave him +for involving her in the labours she already clearly foresaw +were to be hers. How precisely like Red Pepper Burns it was +to plan for a "stag" dinner in this inconsequent way! If it +had been a coming operation, now, no detail of preparation +would have been too insignificant to command his attention. +But in the present instance unquestionably all he had done was +to appear at the door of the kitchen and casually inform +Cynthia that eight or nine men were coming to dinner to-night, +and he'd trust her to see that they should have something good +to eat. Poor Cynthia! + +Winifred ran over to consult Martha Macauley and together they +braved Burns's housekeeper in her kitchen. The result was +relief, as far as the dinner itself was concerned. Cynthia +was a superior cook, and long experience with exclusively +masculine tastes had taught her the sort of thing which, +however out of the beaten line for entertaining, was likely to +prove successful in pleasing "eight or nine men," wherever +they might hail from. + +"Cynthia's planned a dinner that will be about as different +from Lazier's concoctions as could be imagined," Winifred said +to Martha, "but it will taste what Ches calls `licking good.' +Now for the table. I'm afraid Red's china and linen are none +too fine. We'll have to help him out there." + +They helped him out. Only the finest of Martha's linen and +silver, the thinnest of Winifred's plates and cups and the +most precious of her glass would content them. When the table +was set in the low-ceiled, casement-windowed old dining-room +where Red Pepper was accustomed to bolt his meals alone when +he took time for them at all, it was a to table to suggest +arrogantly the hand of woman, Winifred eyed it with milled +satisfaction and concern. + +"It looks lovely, Martha, but not a bit bachelor-like. Do you +suppose he'll mind?" + +"Not as long as the food is right; and judging by the heavenly +smells from the kitchen there's no fear for that. But it's +five o'clock, and the flowers he promised you haven't come. +Do you suppose he's forgotten?" + +"Of course he has. If he remembers the dinner itself it'll be +all we can expect of him. It doesn't matter. There are heaps +of pink and crimson asters yet in the garden, and some fall +anemones. We'll arrange them, and then if his flowers do come +we'll change. But they won't." + +They didn't. But the pink and crimson asters furnished a +centrepiece decidedly more in keeping, somehow, with a men's +dinner than roses would have been, and the decorators were +content with them. Dora, Mrs. Macauley's own serving maid, +who was to take the part of the waitress Red Pepper had not +thought necessary, said they looked "awful tasty now." + +"It's after seven and Red hasn't come yet." Winifred Chester +rushed at Arthur, dressing placidly. "Jim went in for the men +with his car, and said he'd surely have them here by +seven-twenty. You'll have to go over and do the honours for +him till he comes. He'll have to dress after he gets here." + +"He won't stop to dress - not if he's late," predicted +Chester, obediently hastening. "He'll rush in at the last +minute, smelling horribly of antiseptics, and set everybody +laughing with some story. They won't care what he wears. +It's always a case of `where MacGregor sits, there's the head +of the table,' you know, with Red. I certainly hope nothing +will make him late. I'm not up to playing host to a lot of +physicians and surgeons. I should feel as if I were about to +be operated on." + +"Nonsense, dear, there's no jollier company when they're off +duty. But Red isn't here yet, and I'm sure I hear Jim's +Gabriel down the road. Do hurry!" + +Chester ran across the back lawn and in through Burns's +kitchen, startling Cynthia so that she nearly dropped the +salt-box into a sauce she was making for the beefsteak. He +reached the little front porch just in time to welcome the +batch of professional gentlemen who came talking and laughing +up the path together. + +"Doctor Burns has been detained, but I'm sure he'll be here +soon," Chester explained, shaking hands, and discovering for +himself which was the famous Scottish surgeon by the "rugged +commonsense" look of the man, quite as R. P. Burns had +characterized him. + +Seven-thirty - no Red Pepper. Seven-forty-five - eight +o'clock - still no sign of him; harder to be explained, no +sign from him. Why didn't he telephone or send a telegram or +a messenger? Waiting longer would not do; Cynthia, in the +kitchen, was becoming unnervingly agitated. + +The dinner was served. Chester, at one end of the table, +Macauley at the other, both feeling a terrible responsibility +upon them, did their best. There had turned out to be two +extra guests instead of the one whom Burns had thought he +might have asked but couldn't be sure; and Winifred had had a +bad ten minutes looking out a full set of everything with +which to set his place. For Red Pepper's place must certainly +be left unfilled; it would be beyond the possibilities that +the dinner should end without him. + +"I believe he has forgotten," whispered Martha to Winifred in +the office, from whose dim shadows they were surreptitiously +peering into the dining room to make sure that everything was +going properly. + +"Oh, he couldn't, not with the Edinburgh man here. He's often +told us about Doctor Grant and how much he owes him. He does +look splendid and capable, doesn't he - for all he's so burly +and homely? And the other men all feel honoured to be here +with him; even Doctor Van Horn, who's always so impressed with +himself." + +"They seem to be having a good time. And they're eating as if +they never saw food before. It's a success - as much as it +can be without the host himself. Oh, why doesn't Red come?" + +"He wouldn't desert a patient in a crisis for a dozen +dinners." + +"No, but he'd send word." + +"Look at Arthur. He's hobnobbing with Doctor Grant as if he'd +always known him." + +"Jim is having a bad time with Doctor Van Horn. I can see it +in his eye. Mercy! one of them looked this way. I'm afraid +he saw me. Come!" + +The next time they reconnoitred, the dinner was working toward +its end. It was time, for it was nearly ten o'clock, and +Cynthia's courses though not many, had been mighty. Presently +the table had been cleared, and the men were drinking coffee +and lighting the excellent cigars which had been Macauley's +thought when he found that Red Pepper was not on hand to +provide them himself. + +Under the influence of these genial stimulants - Burns never +offered any others, and one man who knew it had declined to +come - the sociability grew more positive. Chester relaxed +his legs under the table, feeling that at last Red's guests +could take care of themselves. Grayson proved an accomplished +story-teller; Buller had lately had some remarkable +adventures; even Ronald Grant, who had seemed a trifle +taciturn, related an extraordinary experience of another man. +The Scottish surgeon had the reputation of never talking about +himself. + +The smoke grew thick. Macauley's cigars were of a strong +brand; the air was blue with their reek. Still the guests sat +about the table, and still the talk went on. + +It was interrupted quite suddenly by the advent of Red Pepper +Burns himself. Macauley saw him first, standing in the +doorway between dining room and office, but for an instant he +did not know him. Macauley's startled look caught Chester's +attention; he sprang to his feet. At the same moment the +Scottish surgeon, following Chester's eyes, observed the +figure in the door. He was first to reach it. + +"What's happened ye, lad?" he asked, and acted without waiting +for an answer. He threw a powerful arm about Burns's +shoulders and led him, reeling, back into the office where the +air was purer. + +They crowded round, doctors though they were and had many +times sharply ordered other people not to crowd. They could +see at a glance that Burns was very faint, that his right arm +hung helpless at his side, that his forehead wore a blackening +bruise, and that his clothes were torn and covered with dirt. +For the rest they had to wait. + +Grant took charge of his friend - the pupil whom he had never +forgotten. The arm was badly broken, too badly to be set +without an anaesthetic. In the inner office Van Horn, his +dress coat off, gave the chloroform while the Scotchman set +the arm; and the American surgeons, no longer crowding, but +standing off respectfully as if at a clinic, looked on +critically. It was rapid and deft work, they admitted, +especially since the surgeon was using another man's splints, +and the patient proved to be one of the subjects who fight the +anesthetic from beginning to end. + +Chester, white-faced but plucky, stuck it out, but Macauley +fled to the outer air. Seeing a familiar long, dark form half +on, half off the driveway, he hurried toward it. A minute +later he had all the unoccupied guests around him on the lawn, +and one of the Green Imp's lamps was turned upon its crippled +shape. + +"By George, he's had a bad accident," one and another of them +said as they examined the car's injuries. The hood was jammed +until they wondered why the engine was not disabled; the left +running-board was nearly torn off and the fender a shapeless +wreck. The green paint was scraped and splintered along the +left side. + +"He must have come home by himself. How far, do you suppose?" + +"Not far, driving with his left hand, and faint." + +"He probably wasn't faint till he struck the indoor heat and +the tobacco smoke." + +"He's come at least five miles. Look at that red clay on her +sides. There's no red clay like that around here except in +one place - at the old mill on the Red Bank road." Chester +demonstrated his theory excitedly. "I ought to know, I've +ridden with him on every out-of-the-way by-path in the county, +first any' last. There's a fright of a hill just there." + +"Five miles with that arm? Gee!" This was Buller. + +"Plucky," was Grayson's comment, and there was a general +agreement among the men standing round. + +Macauley put his shoulder to the Imp. "Let's push her in, +fellows," he proposed. He had forgotten that they were +medical gentlemen of position. "I don't seem to want to drive +her just now," he explained. + +They pushed the Imp to the red barn and shut it in with its +injuries. Then they went back to the house, where presently +Burns came out from under his anaesthetic and lay looking at +his guests from under the bandage which swathed his head. + +"I'm mighty sorry to have broken up the fun this way, +gentlemen," he said with a pale sort of smile. "Grayson was +telling a story when I butted in, I think. Finish it, will +you, Grayson?" + +"Not much. Yours is the story we want now, if you're up to +telling it. What happened out there on the Red Bank road?" + +Burns scanned him. "How do you know what road?" + +"Your friend Mr. Chester's detective instincts. He says +there's no other red clay like that that plasters your car. +By the way, that's a fast machine of yours. Did you lose +control on the hill?" + +"That's it," acknowledged Burns simply. "I lost control." + +Chester was staring at him. It was not in the nature of +reason to suppose that Red Pepper had lost control of that car +unless something else had happened first. The steering gear +of the Imp was certainly in perfect condition; Macauley had +said so. He wondered if Red meant that he had lost his +temper. But what could make him lose his temper - on Red Bank +hill? + +They questioned him closely, all of them in turn. But that +was all he would say. He had lost control of the car. One or +two of the men who knew Burns least looked as if they could +tell what was the probable cause of such loss of control. +Chester wanted to knock them down as he fancied he recognized +this attitude of mind. And at last they went away - which was +certainly the best thing they could do in the circumstances. + +All but Ronald Grant. The Scottish surgeon accepted without +hesitation Burns's suggestion that Doctor Grant should stay +and keep him company for an hour or two while he got used to +his arm, and should then sleep under his roof. So they +settled down, Burns on his couch, Grant in an armchair. When +Chester left he was thinking that, except for the outward +signs of his adventure, Burns did not look as unfit as might +have been expected for a happy hour with an old friend. + +Just outside the house Chester himself had an adventure. He +was quite alone, and he almost ran into a slim figure on the +walk. The lights from the office shone out into the October +night, and Chester could see at a glance who the girl was, +even if the gleam of golden hair which all the town knew had +not told him. She was panting and her hand was on her side. + +"Did Doctor Burns get home all right?" she cried under her +breath. + +"What do you know about Doctor Burns?" was Chester's quick +reply. He was startled by the girl's appearance here at this +hour. + +"It doesn't make any difference what I know. Tell me if he +got home. Was he much hurt? Why shouldn't you tell me that, +Mr. Chester?" + +"He is home and all right. Do you want him professionally? +He can't go out to-night." + +"I know he can't. But I had to know he got home. I - " + +She sank down on the doorstep, shaken and sobbing. Chester +stood looking down at het, wondering what on earth he was to +say. What had Rose Seeley to do with Red? What had she to do +with his losing control on the Red Bank hill? A quick thought +crossed his mind, to be as quickly dismissed. No, whatever +Red's private affairs were, they could have nothing to do with +this Rose - too bruised and trampled a rose to take the fancy +of a man like him even in his most evil hour. + +Suddenly she lifted her head. "He saved my life and 'most +lost his. They'd been making repairs on the hill and, some +way, the lanterns wasn't lit. It's an awful dark night. He +saw what he was comin' to and turned out sudden into the +grass. He had to go into the ditch, then, not to run over me +- and somebody else. He ran away!" Plainly that scornful +accent did not mean Burns. "I didn't. I helped him get the +car up. I got his engine goin' for him; he showed me how. +His arm was broke. There ain't no house for a mile out there. +I hated to see him try to come home alone. I've walked all +the way - run some of it - to make sure he got here." + +"He got here," murmured Chester, thinking to himself that this +was the queerest story he'd over heard, but confident he would +never have any better version of it and pretty sure that it +was the true one. + +"I suppose I'm a crazy fool to tell you, Mr. Chester," said +the girl thickly. "But you're a gentleman. You won't tell. +No more will he. He didn't tell you how it happened, did he?" + +She did not ask the question. She made the assertion, looking +to him for confirmation. Chester gave it. "No, he didn't +tell," he said gravely, + +When she had gone he crossed the lawn to his own home, musing. +"For a `plain, quiet dinner,'" said he, quoting a phrase of +Burns's used when he gave Chester the invitation, "I think +Red's has been about as spectacular as they make 'em. Bully +old boys" + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +IN WHICH HE GETS EVEN WITH HIMSELF + + +R. P. Burns sat at his desk in the inner office, laboriously +inscribing a letter with his left hand. It did not get on +well. The handwriting in the four lines he had succeeded in +fixing upon paper bore not the slightest resemblance to his +usual style; instead, it looked like the chirography of a +five-year-old attempting for the first time to copy from some +older person's script. + +He held up the sheet and gazed at it in disgust. Then he +glanced resentfully at his sling-supported right arm, +especially at the fingers which protruded from the bandages in +unaccustomed limp whiteness. Then he shook his left fist at +it. "You'll do some work the minute you come out of those +splints," he said. "You'll work your passage back to fitness +quicker than an arm ever did before, you pale-faced shirk!" + +Then he applied himself to his task, painfully forming a +series of pothooks until one more sentence was completed. He +read it over, then suddenly crumpled the sheet into a ball and +dropped it into the waste basket. + +"Lie there!" he whimsically commanded it. "You're not fit to +go to a lady." + +He got up and marched into the outer office where his office +nurse sat at a typewriter, making lout bills. + +"Miss Mathewson," he requested gruffly, "please take a +dictation. No, not on the bill letterheads - on the regular +office sheets. I'll speak slowly. In fact, I'll probably +speak very slowly." + +"I'm sorry I don't know shorthand," said Miss Mathewson, +preparing her paper. + +"I'm not. Instead, I'd rather you'd be as slow as you can, to +give me time to think. I'm not used to transmitting mediums - +the battery may be weak - in fact, I'm pretty sure it is. All +ready? My dear Mrs. Lessing" + +His cheek reddened suddenly as he saw the nurse's waiting +hands poised over the keys when she had written this address. +He cleared his throat and plunged in. + +"This has been a typical November day, dull and cold. We had +fine October weather clear into the second week of this month, +but all at once it turned cold and dull. The leaves are all +off the trees - Hold on don't say that. She knows the leaves +are all off the trees the middle of November." + +"I have it partly written." + +"Oh! Well, go on, then; I'll fix it: a fact it may be +necessary to remind you of down there in South Carolina, where +- Miss Mathewson, do you suppose the leaves are on in South +Carolina?" + +"I really don't know, Doctor Burns. I have always lived in +the North." + +"So have I - bother it! Well, leave that out." + +"But I've written `a fact it may be necessary - " + +"Well, finish it: a fact at may be necessary to remind you of, +you have been gone so long. Oh, hang it -that sounds flat! +How can I tell how a sentence is coming out, this way? Let +that paragraph stand by itself - we'll hasten on to something +that will take the reader's mind off our unfortunate +beginning: + +"You will be glad to know that Bobby Burns is well, and not +only well, but fat and hearty. He had a wrestling bout with +Harold Macauley the other day and downed him. He got a black +eye, but that didn't count, though you may not like to hear of +it. He is heavier than when you saw him - Oh, I've said that! +Miss Mathewson, when you see I'm repeating myself, hold me +up." + +"I can't always tell when you're going to repeat yourself," +Miss Mathewson objected. + +"That's enough about Bob, anyhow. Mrs. Macauley writes her +all about him every week, only she probably didn't mention the +black eye. Well, let's start a new paragraph. When in doubt, +always start a new paragraph. It may turn out a gold mine. + +"I found my work much crippled by the loss of my arm. Good +Heavens, that sounds as if I'd had it amputated! And I +suppose she naturally would infer that a man can't do as much +with his arm in a sling as he can when it's in commission. +Well, let it stand. I didn't realize how much surgery I was +doing till I had to cut it all out. `Cut it out,' that +certainly has a surgical ring. It sounds rather bragging, +too, I'm afraid. Never mind. The worst of it is to feel the +muscles ,atrophying from disuse and the tissues wasting, so +that when it comes out of the splints it will still have to be +cured of the degeneration the splints have - Oh, hold on, Miss +Mathewson - this sounds like a paper for a surgical journal!" + +Burns, who had been walking up and down the room, cast himself +into an armchair and stared despairingly at his amanuensis. +But she reassured him by saying quietly that it was always +difficult to dictate when one was not used to it, and that the +letter sounded quite right. + +"Well, if you think so, we'll try another paragraph - that's +certainly enough about me. Let me see - " He ran his left +hand through his hair. + +Footsteps sounded upon the porch. Arthur Chester opened the +door. + +"Oh, excuse me, Red. It's nothing. I was going for a tramp, +and I thought " + +"I'm with you." Burns sprang to his feet looking immensely +relieved. "Thank you, Miss Mathewson, we'll finish another +time. Or perhaps I can scrawl a finish with my left hand. +I'll take the letter. I'll look in at Bob and get my hat in a +jiffy, Ches." + +He seized the letter, ran into the inner office, looked in at +the dimly-lighted room where the boy was sleeping, took up a +soft hat and, out of sight of Miss Mathewson, crammed the +typewritten sheet into his pocket in a crumpled condition. +Pulling the soft hat well down over his eyes he followed +Chester out into the fresh November night, drawing a long +breath of satisfaction as the chill wind struck him. + +"You were just in time to save me from an awful scrape I'd got +myself into," he remarked as they tramped away. + +"I thought you looked hot and unhappy. Were you proposing to +Miss Mathewson by letter? It's always best to say those +things right out: letters are liable to misinterpretation," +jeered Chester. + +"You're right there. I was riding for a fall fast enough when +you reined up alongside. But what's a fellow to do when he +can't write himself, except in flytracks?" + +"I presume the lady would prefer the fly-track to a +typewritten document executed by another woman." + +"How do you know the thing was to a lady?" Burns demanded. + +"That's easy. No man looks as upset as you did over a +communication to another man. What do you write to her for, +anyhow, when she's as near as Washington?" + +"What?" + +"Doesn't she keep you informed? Winifred says Martha says +Ellen came back up to Washington yesterday for the wedding of +a friend - hastily arranged - to an army officer suddenly +ordered somewhere - old friend of Ellen's - former bridesmaid +of hers, I believe. She - " + +Burns had stopped short in the middle of the hubbly, +half-frozen street they were crossing. "How long does she +stay in Washington?" + +"I don't know. Ask Win. Probably not long, since she only +came for this wedding. It's tonight, I think she said. +Aren't you coming?" + +Burns walked on at a rapid stride with which Chester, +shorter-legged and narrower-chested, found it difficult to +keep up. They had their tramp, a four-mile course which they +were accustomed to cover frequently together at varying paces. +Chester thought they had never covered it quite so quickly nor +so silently before. For Burns, from the moment of receiving +Chester's news, appeared to fall into a reverie from which it +was impossible to draw him, and the subject of which his +companion found it not difficult to guess. After the first +half mile, Chester, than whom few men were more adaptable to a +friend's mood, accepted the situation and paced along as +silently as Burns, until the round was made and the two were +at Burns's door. + +"Good night. Afraid I've been dumb as an oyster," was Burns's +curt farewell, and Chester chuckled as he walked away. + +"Something'll come of the dumbness," he prophesied to himself. + +Something did. It was a telegram, telephoned to the office by +a sender who rejoiced that having one's left arm in a sling +did not obstruct one's capacity to send pregnant messages by +wire. He had obtained the address from Martha Macauley, also +over the telephone: + +"Mrs. E. F. Lessing, Washington, D. C. +Am leaving Washington to-night. Hope to have drive with you +to-morrow morning in place of letters impossible to write. R. +P. BURNS." + +"I suppose that's a fool telegram," he admitted to himself as +he hung up the receiver, "but after that typing mess I had to +express myself somehow except by signs. Now to get off. +Luckily, this suit'll do. No time to change, anyhow." + +He telephoned for a sleeper berth; he called up a village +physician and the house surgeon at the city hospital, and made +arrangements with each for seeing his patients during the two +nights and a day of his absence. He had no serious case on +hand and, of course, no surgical work, so that it was easier +to get away than it might be again for a year after his arm +should be once more to be counted on. Then he interviewed +Cynthia on the subject of Bob; after which he packed a small +bag, speculating with some amusement, as he did so, on the +succession of porters, bell-boys, waiters and hotel valets he +should have to fee during the next thirty-six hours to secure +their necessary assistance, from the fastening of his shoes to +the tying of his scarfs, the cutting up of his food, and the +rest of the hundred little services which must be rendered the +man with his right arm in a sling. + +"I may not look a subject for travel, Miss Mathewson," he +announced with a brilliant smile, appearing once more in the +outer office, where the bill-copying was just coming to a +finish, "but I'm off, nevertheless. Thank you for your +struggle with my schoolboy composition. We won't need to +finish it. I'm - Oh, thunder!" + +It was the office bell. Miss Mathewson answered it. Burns, +prepared to deny himself to all ordinary petitioners, saw the +man's face and stopped to listen. It was a rough-looking +fellow who told him his brief story, but the hearer listened +with attention and his face became grave. He turned to Miss +Mathewson. + +"Call Johnny Caruthers and the Imp, please," he directed. +"Telephone the Pullman ticket office and change my berth +reservation from the ten-thirty to the one o'clock train." + +He went out with the man, and Miss Mathewson heard him say: +"You walked in, Joe? You can ride back with us on the +running-board." + +Ten minutes after he had gone Chester came again. He found +Miss Mathewson reading by the office droplight. On the desk +stood a travelling bag; beside it lay a light overcoat, not +the sort that Red Pepper was accustomed to wear in the car, a +dress overcoat with a silk lining. On it reposed a that and a +pair of gloves rolled into a ball, man fashion. Chester +regarded with interest these unmistakable signs of intended +travel. + +"Doctor Burns going out of town?" he inquired casually. It +must be admitted that he had scented action of some sort on +the wind which had taken his friend from his company at the +conclusion of the walk. Ordinarily, Burns would have gone +into Chester's den and settled down for an hour of talk before +bedtime. + +"I believe so," Miss Mathewson replied in the noncommittal +manner of the professional man's confidential assistant. "But +he has gone out for a call now." + +"Back soon?" + +"I don't know, Mr. Chester." + +"Did he go in the Imp?" + +"Yes." + +"Country call, probably - they're the ones that bother a man +at night as long as he does country work. I've often told +Doctor Burns it was time he gave up this no-'count rural +practice. Well, do you know what time his train goes?" + +"After midnight, some time." Miss Mathewson knew that Mr. +Chester was Doctor Burns's close friend, but she was too +accustomed to keep, her lips closed over her employers affairs +to give information, even to Chester, except under protest. + +"Hm! Well, I believe I'll sit up for him and help him off. A +one-armed man needs an attendant. Don't stay up, Miss +Mathewson. I'll take any message he may leave for you." + +"I'm afraid I ought to wait," replied the faithful nurse +doubtfully. + +"I don't believe it. Go home and go to bed, like a tired +girl, as you no doubt are, and trust me. If he wants you I +promise to telephone you. I'll see him off and like to do it. +Come!" + +There being no real reason for doing otherwise than follow +this most sensible advice, Miss Mathewson went away. Chester, +settling himself by the drop-light in the chair she had +vacated, fancied she looked a trifle disappointed and wondered +why. Surely, he reasoned, the girl must get enough of erratic +night work without sitting up merely to hand Burns his +overcoat and wish him a pleasant journey. + +It was a long wait. Chester enlivened it by telephoning +Winifred that he wouldn't be home till morning - or sooner, +and elicited a flurry of questioning which he evaded rather +clumsily. + +It was all right for him to be curious concerning Red's +affairs, he considered, but there was no need for the women to +get started on inquisitive questions. + +He read himself asleep at last over the office magazines, and +was awakened by a hurried step on the porch and a gust of +November night air on his warm face. + +"What are you doing here?" was the question which assaulted +him. + +"Sitting up for you," was Chester's sleepy reply. He rubbed +his eyes. "Thought you might like to have me see you off:" + +"I'm not going anywhere except back to the case I've just +left. Go home and go to bed." + +Chester sat up. He looked at Burns with awakening interest. +He had never seen his friend's face look grimmer than it did +now under the gray slouch hat, which he had worn for the +tramp, pulled well down over his brows, and which, during all +his preparations and his hasty departure in the car, it had +not occurred to him to remove or to exchange for the leather +cap he usually wore on such trips. + +" Back to a country case instead of to Washington?" +Incredulity was written large on Chester's face. + +Burns nodded, growing grimmer than before, if that were +possible. He sat down on the arm of a chair, glancing over at +the desk where his belongings lay. "How did you know I was +going to Washington?" + +"Inferred it." + +"You're mighty quick at inference. Maybe I wasn't. But I +was. Now I'm not. That's all there is to it." + +"But why not? Can't you turn the case over? I'll bet my hat +it's a dead-beat case at that!" + +Burns nodded again. "It is." + +"You're an ass, then." + +"Perhaps." + +"You don't expect - her - to stay in Washington waiting for +you, do you, when she only came up for that wedding and is +going straight back to keep some other engagements? That's +what Win says she's to do." + +"No, I don't expect her to wait." Burns pulled the slouch hat +lower yet. Chester could barely see his eyes. He could only +hear the tone of his denial of any such absurd expectation. + +Chester rose and stood looking down at his friend, who had +folded his left arm over his right in its sling, as he sat on +the chair arm, and looked the picture of dogged resignation. + +"I suppose there's some reason at the bottom of what strikes +me as pure foolishness," he admitted. "You won't do me the +honour of mentioning it?" + +"Case of infected wound in the foot. Threatened tetanus. +Five-year-old child." + +"Nobody competent to treat the case but you?" + +Burns looked up. Chester saw his eyes now, gloomy but +resolute. "No. It's up to me alone. I owe it to the woman. +It's the only child she has left: a girl. It was her boy I +sent to a better world with maledictions on his mother's +head." + +Comprehension dawned at last on Chester's face. He saw that, +taking into consideration Burns's feeling in that matter, +there was really nothing to be said. "I hope you win out," he +evolved at length from the confusion of ideas in his mind. + +"I hope I do." Burns rose. "I must send a telegram," he said, +and went to the telephone in the inner office. + +While he was there Chester heard the honk of the Imp's horn +outside. When Burns came back he opened the outer door and +called to Johnny Caruthers, to know if he had obtained the +serum for which he had been sent to the druggist. Johnny +shouted back that he had. Burns turned to Chester. + +"Good night," he said. "Much obliged for waiting up for me." + +Then, with a certain fighting expression on his lips which +Chester had learned to know meant that his whole purpose was +set on the attainment of an end for which no price could be +too great to pay, Burns went out to Johnny Caruthers and the +Green Imp. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +IN WHICH HE HAS HIS OWN WAY + + +Doc" - Joe Tressler followed Burns down the path, leaving his +wife standing in the doorway, her eyes fixed, on the +retreating figure of the man who had saved to her her one +remaining child - "Doc, we ain't a-goin' to forget this!" + +"Neither am I, Joe, for various reasons," replied Burns, +watching Johnny Caruthers try the Green Imp's spark. He +jumped in beside Johnny and looked back at Joe. "Remember, +now, keep things going just as I leave them, and I shall +expect to find Letty nearly as well as ever when I see her +again. I shall be back in five days. Good-bye." + +"Yes." + +"I'll be around when you get back, with some money." + +Burns looked the man in the eye. "Oh, come, Joe, don't say +anything you don't mean." + +"I mean it this time, Doe - I sure do. Me and the old woman - +we - Letty - " The fellow choked. + +"All right, Joe. I'm as glad as you are Letty's safe. Take +care of her. Take care of your wife. Do a stroke of good, +back-breaking work once in a while. It'll help that tired +feeling of yours that's getting to be dangerously chronic. +You've no idea, Joe, what a satisfaction it is, now and then, +to feel that you've accomplished something. Try it. +Good-bye." + +He waved his hand at the woman in the door, who responded with +a flutter of her dingy apron; which was immediately thereafter +applied to her eyes. Within, by the window, a little +pale-faced girl hugged a remarkable doll with yellow hair and +a red silk frock. + +"You'd ought to be pretty proud, Letty Tressler," said the +woman, returning to the small convalescent, "to think Doc +kissed you when he left. He's been awful good to you, Doc +has, and him with that arm in a sling a-bothering him all the +time. But I didn't think he'd do that." + +"Maybe it's 'cause I'm so clean now," speculated the child +weakly. "When he did it he whispered in my ear that he liked +clean faces." + +"Letty, you ain't goin' to have any kind o' face but a clean +face after this, jest on account o' Doc Burns," vowed her +mother emotionally, and the child, her doll pressed against +her face, nodded. + +Far down the road Burns was bidding Johnny Caruthers put on +more speed. "We have to make time to-day, Johnny," he +explained. "I'm going to get off on that ten-thirty to-night +if I have to break my other arm to do it. I don't know that +I'd be much more helpless than I am now if I did. Curious, +Johnny, how many things there are a man can't do with one +hand." + +"I should say you could do more with that left hand of yours +than most folks can with both," declared young Caruthers, +honest admiration in his eye. + +Burns laughed - a hearty, care-free laugh. He was in wild +spirits, Johnny could see that, and wondered why the Doctor +should be so happy over pulling a dead-beat family out of +their troubles. Everybody knew Joe Tressler. And Johnny +understood that the Doctor had given up going away on Joe's +account ten days ago, when he took the case on the eve of his +departure. Johnny had seen his employer in all stages of +tension since that day, as he had driven him out, at first +half-a-dozen times in the twenty-four hours, to this same +little old wreck of a house. Johnny had driven him to other +houses, also to one especially, in the city, where the lad had +sat and speculated much on the extremes of experience in the +life of a busy practitioner. + +It was to this same house that Johnny took Burns next; a house +reached by a long drive through wonderful grounds, to a palace +of a home within which the man with his arm in the sling +disappeared with precisely the same rather brusque and hurried +bearing characteristic of him everywhere. But Johnny could +not see within. If he had, his honest eyes might have opened +still wider. + +On his way upstairs Burns was intercepted by the master of the +house. + +"You've decided to go with us, Doctor Burns, I hope?" The +question was put in the fashion of a person who expects but +one answer. But the answer proved to be not that one +expected. + +"I'm sorry, but I can't do it, Mr. Walworth." Burns's left +hand, in the cordial grip which expresses hearty liking, was +retained while William Walworth, who was accustomed to be able +to arrange all things to his pleasure by the simple expedient +of paying whatever it might cost, stared into the bright hazel +eyes which met his with their usual straightforward glance. + +"Can't'! But you must, my dear Doctor, Pardon me, but I feel +that no ordinary considerations can be allowed to stand in the +way. My daughter needs your care on this journey. Her mother +and I have agreed that her wish to have you with us must be +fulfilled. It's an essential factor in her recovery." + +"It's not essential at all, Mr. Walworth. Miss Evelyn is well +started on the road to full health; she has only to keep on. +My going with you would be a mere matter of pleasing her, and +that's not in the least necessary." + +His smile softened the words which struck upon the ear of the +magnate with an unaccustomed sound. Mr. Walworth released +Burns's hand, his manner stiffening slightly. + +"I must differ with you, Doctor. I feel that at this stage +Evelyn's pleasure is a thing to be planned for. She has taken +this fancy to have you with us on the Mediterranean cruise. +We'll agree to land you and send you home at the end of a +couple of months if you positively feel that you can't neglect +your practice longer. But let me remind you, Doctor, that +your fee will be made to cover all possible income from your +practice during that time, and - I shall not be contented to +measure its size by that." + +It was Burns's turn to stiffen within, if he did not let it +show outwardly. He spoke positively and finally. Even +William Walworth saw that it would be of no use to urge a man +who said quite quietly: + +"I've thought it over, as I promised you, and decided against +it. I assure you I appreciate the honour you would do me, and +I should immensely like the experience. But I know my going +is not necessary to Miss Evelyn's recovery, and that's the +only thing that could make me hesitate. I'll go up and see +her at once, if you will forgive my haste. I have a busy day +before me." + +William Walworth looked after him as he ran up the stately +staircase, and his thoughts were somewhat as Johnny +Caruthers's had been. "He's more of a man, crippled like +that, than any I know. I wonder why he won't go. I wonder. +But he won't, that's settled. Now to appease Evelyn. He'll +not find that so easy." + +Burns did not find it easy. He sat down beside the +convalescent, a patient who had everything on her side with +which to win her chosen physician's consent to stay by her +till she should be in the possession once more of the blooming +beauty which had made her one of the envied of the earth. He +told her, in the direct manner he had used with her father, +that he could not fall in with their plans. + +When he came away he was tingling all over. It had been so +plain. She had tried to disguise it, but she was where she +could not run to cover, and he had seen it all. It gave him +no pleasure: he was not that sort. He was sorry for the girl, +but he was not in the least anxious about her. She would get +over it; it was not his fault - he was conscience-clear on +that. If ever he had been coolly - however kindly - +professional in his bearing it had been in this home of great +wealth, where it would have gone against his inmost grain to +have seemed to court liking. If anything, his orders had been +more curt, his concessions fewer, his whole treatment of the +case on simpler lines than it might have been in almost any +less pretentious home with which he was familiar. + +He ran down the stone steps in eager haste to be gone, his +vision still engaged with the reproachful look Evelyn's mother +had given him when she heard of his incredible refusal to +accompany the Walworths on the luxuriously-equipped expedition +in search of recuperation and enjoyment for the idolized only +daughter. "This settles me with them to the end of time, I +suppose," he said to himself. As the car ran down the drive, +he straightened his shoulders with a sense of thankfulness +that his practice was not often in the homes of the +comparatively few people who can afford to buy even that most +precious of commodities, the time of others, when that time +has been consecrated to certain uses. + +"Not going to stop for lunch, Doctor?" inquired young +Caruthers anxiously, as the round of calls went on and one +o'clock passed, with the Imp in a portion of the city remote +from the hotel at which + +Burns was accustomed to refresh himself and Johnny when home +was out of the question. + +"We'll go to the hospital next, and I shall be there a couple +of hours. You can go and fill up then. I must be back at the +office by four - for engagements." + +So the day went. The busy physician who goes out of town for +even a five days' vacation must plan for it and do much +arranging in various ways. In spite of the fact that it would +still be many weeks before Burns could attempt surgery again, +he was having plenty to do. Only the determination to get +away this time without fail made it possible for him to go. +But there would be never a time when he could better be +spared, and he meant to let nothing hinder his purpose. + +"The arm's coming on well," was Doctor Buller's verdict late +that afternoon as he gave the healing member its usual +manipulation and massage. "It takes patience to wait, though, +doesn't it, Burns? Never tried a broken arm myself, but I +should say that hand must be itching to be at work in the +operating-room again." + +"Itching! It's burning, blistering, scarifying! I never knew +how I liked that part of my work till I had to come down to an +exclusive practice in pills and plasters. Grayson's doing a +stunt to-day that would have driven me mad with envy if I +could have stopped to look on. Doing it cleverly, too, by the +report I had from Van Horn just now. When Van takes the +trouble to praise another man it means something." + +"Means it's been forced from him," commented Buller. +"Besides, Van enjoys praising Grayson to you. He's enjoyed +your smashed arm, too, the old fraud. Was he ever so decent +to you before?" + +Burns laughed. "You can't strike fire that way today," he +declared. "Hold on! You're not going to put that arm back +into the splints?" + +"Of course I am. It lacks two days yet off the shortest +modern regulation period. Come on here." + +"Leave 'em off. I'll take the consequences." + +"Don't be foolish, man. If I had my way I'd keep the thing +put up another full week. I'm not an advocate of this hurry +business." + +"I am. The arm's well enough to come out. I'll wear it in a +sling, but I want my coat sleeve on, and I'm going to have it +on. Fix me up, will you? I'm in a hurry." + +"You're going on a journey?" + +"Yes. Get busy." + +"That's the very reason why you should keep that arm out of +danger till you get back. Jostling round in a crowd " + +"Is this my arm or yours?" thundered Burns. + +Buller laughed. "Don't knock me down with it, Pepper-pot. It +may be your arm, but you're my patient, and I - " + +"Don't you fool yourself. If you won't fix me up I'll go out +with it hanging, I can judge my own condition. Will you dress +me and put any arm in this sling here, or must I send for +Grayson? He's none of your idiotic conservatives." + +"Keep quiet, and I'll make you look pretty, little boy. I see +- these are new clothes just home from the tailor, and they're +an elegant fit. Bully fresh scarf, peach of a pin, brand-new +black silk sling - Oh, I say!" + +For with his good left arm Burns was threatening his +professional friend in a way that looked ominous. But a laugh +was in his eye, now that he had got his way, and the +altercation ended in a fire of jokes. Then Burns stood up. + +"You're a jewel, Buller boy," said he. "You've brought me +through in great shape. It was a nasty fracture, and you've +given me an arm that'll be as good as new. I'm grateful - you +know that. Now, if you'll look over that list I gave you of +cases here in the city, and go out once to take a look at +Letty Tressler, I'll be ever faithfully yours. Griggs'll see +to my village practice. Now I'm off." + +"Hope you enjoy your trip. Must be a concentrated pleasure, +to be crammed into five days and still make you look like a +schoolboy just let out," observed Buller as Burns turned, with +his band on the door-knob. + +"A dose doesn't have to be big to be powerful," rejoined +Burns, opening the door. + +"Nitro-glycerin, eh?" Buller called after the departing bulk +of his friend. "Don't let it carry you too far up. You might +come down with a thud!" + +"He's right enough there," was what Burns murmured to himself +as he caught the elevator in the great building in which +Buller's office was a crowded corner. "I may come down in +just that style. But better that than any more of this dead +level of suspense. I don't think I could stand that one more +day." + +He and Johnny Caruthers whirled home in the Imp to find +Burns's village office as crowded as Buller's city one. It +was late before he could get his dinner, and after it he was +kept busy turning calls over to other men. It was the usual +experience to have work pile up during the last hours, as if +Fate were against his breaking his chains and meant to tie him +hand and foot. + +'I'm going to get out of this right now," he announced +suddenly to Miss Mathewson an hour before train time, as he +turned away from a siege over the telephone with one +hysterical lady who felt that her life depended upon his +remaining to see her through an attack of indigestion. "If I +don't, something will come in that will pull hard to keep me +home, and I'm not going to be kept. I'll trust you not to +look me up for the next hour, for I'll not tell you where I'm +going, and you can't guess, you know. Good-bye. Be a good +girl." + +He wrung her hand, looking at her with that warmth of +friendliness which he was accustomed, when in the mood, to +bestow on her, recognizing how invaluable she was to him, and +never once recking what it meant to her to be so closely +associated with him. She answered in her usual quiet way, +wishing him a safe journey and bidding him be very careful of +the arm, no longer protected except by the silken sign that +injury had been done. + +"In a crowd, you know, they won't notice the sling," she +warned him. + +"Won't they? Well, if my trusty left can't protect my +battered right I've forgotten my boxing tricks. Don't be +anxious about that, little friend. See that Amy Mathewson has +a good time in my absence, will you? She's looking just a bit +worn, to me." + +She smiled, but her eyes did not meet his: she dared not let +them. With all his kindness to her he did not often speak +with the real affection which was in his voice now. She +understood that he was, for some reason, keyed high over his +prospective journey even higher than he had been ten days +before when on the point of leaving. And she knew well enough +where he was going, though he had not told her. It would have +taken thirty-six hours to go to Washington, spend a brief time +there and return. It was going to take five days to go to +South Carolina, remain long enough to transact his business - +was it business? - and come back. And there had been no more +attempts to write letters by way of an amanuensis. The +affection for his assistant in his manner to her was genuine, +she did not doubt that, but it did not deceive her for a +moment. So, she did not let her eyes meet his. They rested, +instead, on the scarfpin which Buller had termed a "peach," +but they did not see it. She could not remember when it had +been so hard to maintain that quiet control of herself which +had long since made her employer cease to reckon with the +possibilities of fire beneath. + +R. P. Burns stole away with Johnny and the Imp, without so +much as letting his neighbours know of his intentions. He had +made sure that they were all well; that no incipient scarlet +fever or invading measles was threatening them. He smiled to +himself as the car went past the Chester house, to think how +interested they would be to know where he was going. But he +got safely off and nobody opened a door at sound of the Imp to +call to him to come in a minute because somebody seemed not +quite well. + +And then, after all, he ran upon Arthur Chester - and at the +city station, to which he had taken the precaution to go, +although the ten-thirty stopped for a half-minute at the +village. It must be admitted that he tried to dodge his best +friend, but he did not succeed. His shoulders were too +conspicuous: he could not get away. + +"Going to see an out-of-town patient at this hour of night?" +queried Chester, coming up warmly interested, as best friends +have a trick of being, in spite of all that can be done to +avert their curiosity. + +"Where else would I be going?" + +"I don't know where else, but I doubt if it's to see a +patient. There's an air about you that's not professional. +You - er - you can't be going to Washington? There's nobody +there now." + +"No, only a few Government officials and some odds and ends of +hangers-on. To be sure, Congress is in session, but there's +nobody there. My train's been called, Ches; so long." + +"Let me carry your bag." Chester reached for it. "I say, this +isn't a tool-kit - this is a stunner of a regulation +travelling bag. See here, Red," he was rushing along on the +other's side, fairly running to keep up with Burns's strides - +"how long are you going to be gone?" + +"Long enough to get a change of air. The atmosphere's heavy +here with inquisitive people who call themselves your friends. +See here, Ches, you're not looking well. You need rest and +sleep. Go home and go to bed." + +"You're always telling me to go home and go to bed. Not till +I see which train you take," panted Chester, his eyes +sparkling. "Ha! Going to turn in at Number Four gate, are +you? Sorry I can't take your bag inside. Well, possibly I +can guess your destination. Got your section clear through to +South Carolina? I say, keep your head, old man, keep your +head!" + +Burns turned about, shook his fist at Arthur Chester, seized +his bag, rushed through the gateway and boarded the last of +the long string of Pullmans. On the platform he pulled off +his hat and waved it at his friend. He could forgive anybody +for anything tonight. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +IN WHICH HE MAKES NO EVENING CALL + + +Burns opened the white gate - it was sagging a little on its +hinges -and walked up the moss-grown path between the rows of +liveoaks to the tall-columned portico of the still stately, if +somewhat timeworn and decayed, mansion among the shrubbery. +It was just at dusk, and far away somewhere a whippoorwill was +calling. It was the only sound on the quiet air. + +The door was opened by an old negro servant, who hesitated +over his answer to the question put by this unknown person +looming up before him with his arm in a sling. Mrs. Elmore +was in, but she was not well and could not see any visitors +this evening. + +"Is Mrs. Lessing in?" + +"Yas, Sah, she is. But she done tole me she couldn't see +nobody herse'f. She tekkin' cah ob Miss Lucy." + +Burns produced his card and made a persuasive request. The +old darky led the way to a long, nearly dark apartment, where +the scent of roses mingled with the peculiar odour of old +mahogany and ancient rugs and hangings. The servant lit a +tall, antique lamp with crystal pendants hanging from its +shade, the light from which fell upon a bowlful of crimson +roses so that they glowed richly. He left Burns, departing +with a shufing step and an air of grudging the strange +gentleman the occupancy of the room, although it was to be for +only so long as it would take to bring back word that neither +of the ladies would see him to-night. + +Burns sat still for the space of two minutes then, as no +further sound could be heard in the quiet house, he became +restless. His pulses beat rather heavily and, to quiet them +or the sense of them, he got up and walked about, pausing at +one of the long French windows to gaze out into the dusky +labyrinth of a garden, where he could just make out paths +winding about among the bushes. The night was mild, and the +window stood ajar as if some one had lately come in. + +Then he turned and saw her. She had almost reached him, but +he had not heard her, her footfall upon the old Turkey carpet +with its faded roses and lilies had been so light. She was in +white, and the light from the old lamp shone on her arms end +face and brought out the shadows of her hair and eyes. She +put out both hands - then quickly drew back one as her glance +fell upon the sling, and gave him her left, smiling. But he +drew the arm that had been broken out of its support and held +it out. + +"Please take this hand, too," he said. "It will be its first +experience and, perhaps, it will put new life into it. It's +pretty limp yet." + +She laid hers in it very gently, looking down at it as his +fingers closed slowly over hers. + +"That's doing very well, I should think," she said. "It's +barely time for it to be independent yet, is it?" + +"About time. I had something of a wrestle with Doctor Buller +to get him to leave the splints off. How warm and soft your +hand is. This one of mine has forgotten how the touch of +another hand feels." + +"I'm sure you ought not to use it yet. Please put it back in +the sling." She drew her own hand gently away. + +It occurred to him that while he had been absent from her he +had not been able to recall half her charm, and that if he had +he would never have been able to wait half so long before +pursuing her down into this Southern haunt of hers. He drew a +full, contented breath. + +"At last," he said, "I am face to face with you. It's worth +the journey." + +In the lamplight it seemed to him the rose cast a reflection +on her face which he had not observed at first. + +"I'm so sorry Aunt Lucy isn't able to see you tonight," she +said - "unless she would consent go see you professionally. +She really ought " + +He held up his hand "Not unless she is in serious straits, +please," he begged. "I've fled from patients, only to find +them all the way down on the train. I don't know what there +can be about me to suggest to a conductor that I'm the man +he's looking for to attend some emergency case, but he seems +to spot me. Only at the station before this did I get +released from the last of the series. Let me forget my +profession for a bit if I can, just now I'm only a man who's +come a long way to see you. Is it really you?" + +He leaned forward, studying her intently. His head, with its +coppery thatch of heavy hair, showed powerful lines in the +lamplight; beneath his dark throws the hazel eyes glowed +black. + +"It's certainly I," she answered lightly. "And being I, with +the mistress of the house prevented from showing you +hospitality, I must offer it. She begged me to make you +comfortable and to tell you she would see you in the morning. +You've had a long journey. You must want the comfort of a +room and hot water. I'll ring for Old Sam." + +She crossed the room and pulled an old-fashioned bell-cord, +upon which a bell was heard to jangle far away. The old darky +reappeared. + +"I should have gone to a hotel," Burns said, "if I could have +found one in the place." + +"There is none. And if there had been Aunt Lucy would have +been much hurt to have you go there. Where did you leave your +bag?" + +"At the station. I can stay only for a night and a day, so +it's a small one." + +"I'll send Young Sam for it. Now let Sam take you to your +room, and in a few minutes I'll give you supper," + +"Don't bother about supper at this hour. I only want - " + +"You want what you are to have, - some of Sue's delicious +Southern cookery." She smiled at him as he looked back at +her, following the old servant. "She's been in the family for +forty years and she loves to have company to appreciate her +dishes. Sam, you are to help Doctor Burns. He has had a +broken arm." + +When Burns came down, fresh from a bath and comfortable with +clean linen, he smelled odours which made him realize that, +eager as he was for other things, he was human enough to be +intensely hungry with a healthy man's appetite. So he +surrendered himself to the fortunes that now befell him. + +Old Sam conducted him to the dining-room, a quaintly +attractive apartment where candle-light illumined the bare +mahogany of the round table laid with a large square of linen +at his place and set with delicate ancient china and silver. +Ellen Lessing was already there in a high-backed chair +opposite the one set for him, a figure to which his eyes were +again drawn irresistibly and upon which they continued to rest +as he took his seat. + +Sam disappeared toward the kitchen, and Burns spoke in a low +voice across the table. + +"I feel as if I were in a dream," said he. "Forty-eight hours +ago I was rushing about, hundreds of miles from here, trying +to attend to the wants of a lot of people who seemed +determined not to let me get away. Now I'm down here in the +midst of all this quiet and peace, with you before me to look +at, and nobody to demand anything of me for at least +twenty-four hours. It's all too good to be true." + +"It seems rather odd to me, too," she answered, letting her +eyes stray from his and rest upon the bowl of japonicas of a +glowing pink, which stood in the centre of the table. The +candle-light made little starry points in her dark eyes as she +looked at the rich-hued blooms. "The last person in the world +I was expecting to see to-night was you." + +"I suppose I was as far from your thoughts as your +expectation," he suggested. + +"How should I be thinking of a person who had not written to +me for so long I thought he had forgotten me?" she asked, and +then as he broke out into a delighted laugh at her expense she +grew as, pink as her flowers and seemed to welcome the return +of Sam bearing a trayful of Sue's good things to eat. + +Fried chicken and sweet potatoes, beaten biscuit and fragrant +coffee, had a flavour all their own to Burns that night. He +ate as a hungry man should, yet never forgot his companion for +a moment or allowed her to imagine that he forgot her. And by +and by the meal was over and the two rose from the table. + +"I must go and see that Auntie is comfortable for the night, +if you will excuse me for half an hour," said the person he +had come to see. "Will you wait in the drawing-room? I will +have Sam bring you some late magazines." + +"I'll wait, and no magazines, thank you. I can fill the time +somehow," he answered. "But don't let it be more than the +half-hour, will you?" + +He watched her until she disappeared from his sight at the +turn of the staircase landing, then went in to pace up and +down the long room, his left arm folded over his right, after +the fashion he had acquired since the right arm became +useless. After what seemed an interminable interval she came +back. He met her at the door. + +"Are the duties all done?" he inquired. + +"All done for the present. I must look in on Auntie by and +by, but I think she is going to sleep." + +"May she sleep the sleep of the just! And there's nothing +more you feel it incumbent upon you to do for me? No more +sending me to my room, no more waiting upon me by Sam, no more +feeding me till my capacity is reached? Is there really no +notion in your mind as to how you can put off the coming +hour?" + +His voice had its old, whimsical inflection, but there was a +deeper note in it, too. She parried him gently, yet not quite +so composedly as was her wont. + +"Why should I want to put if off? Aren't we going to sit down +and have a delightful talk? I want to hear all about Bob and +Martha and all of them, and about your work since I saw you." + +"You want to hear all about those things, do you? I had the +impression that we discussed them quite thoroughly while I was +at supper. Still, I can go over them all again if you insist. +It may take up another five minutes, and when one is fencing +for time, even five minutes counts." + +It was his old way, with a vengeance. There was a saying of +Arthur Chester's current among his and Burns's friends that it +never was of any use to try to evade Red Pepper when once he +had begun to fire upon your defenses. With his eyes searching +you and his insolent tongue putting point blank questions to +you, you might as well capitulate first as last. + +There being no conceivable answer to this thrust about fencing +for time, even for a woman experienced in replying skilfully +to men under all sorts of conditions, Ellen Lessing was forced +to look up or play the part of a shy girl. So she looked up, +lifting her head bravely. There really was nothing else to +do. + +It was all in his face. He had not come all those hundreds of +miles to pay her an evening call, nor did he mean to be put +off longer. His eyes held hers: she could not withdraw them. + +"It's odd," he said, speaking slowly, "how like a magnet +drawing a steel bar you've drawn me down here. Pull-pull-pull +an irresistible force. I wonder if the magnet feels the +attraction, too? Could it pull so hard if it didn't?" + +There was a long minute during which neither stirred - it +might have been the counterpart of that minute, months back, +when they had first observed each other. Recognition it was, +perhaps, at the very first; there could be no question about +the recognition now - it went deep. + +Suddenly he slipped his right arm out of the sling. Before +she could draw breath she was in the circle of his arms, but +he had not touched her. + +"Am I wrong?" he was saying. "Has it pulled both ways from +the first?" + +It must be as useless for the magnet to resist as for the bar. +And when they, have come within a certain distance of each +other - + +If Red Pepper's left arm caught her in the stronger grasp, the +right did all, and more than all, that could have been +expected of it. It was his right arm which slowly drew her +hands up, one after the other, and indicated to them that +their place was; locked together, behind his neck. + + +An old garden in South Carolina is a place to lure the +Northerner out-of-doors. Before breakfast next morning Burns +was walking down the box-bordered paths, feasting his gaze and +his sense of fragrance on the clumps of blue and white +violets, the clusters of gay crocuses, the splendid spikes of +Roman hyacinths. But he did not fail to keep track of all +doorways in sight, and when she appeared at the open French +window of the drawing-room he was there in a trice, offering +her a bunch of purple violets and feasting his eyes upon her +morning freshness. + +"I'm still dreaming, I think," said he when he had drawn her +back into the quiet room long enough to satisfy himself with +the active demonstration that possession means privilege, and +had himself fastened the violets in the front of her crisp +white morning dress. "Dreaming that I can stay down here in +this wonderful paradise with you and not go back to the +slave's life I lead." + +"You would never be happy away from that slave's life long, +you know," she reminded him. "The rush of it is the joy of it +to you." + +"How will it be to you? I shall be yours, you remember, till +Joe Tressler or any other ne'er-do-weel wants me, then I'm +his." + +"But you'll always come back to me," said she. + +"And will you be content with that?" + +"So long as you want to come back." + +He looked steadily into her eyes, and his own took fire. +"Want to come back! I've waited a long time to find the woman +I could be sure I should always want to come back to. I +thought there would never be such a woman: not for an erratic +fellow like me . . . . But now I'm wondering how I shall ever +be able to stay away." + + +CHAPTER XIV + +IN WHICH HE DEFIES SUPERSTITION + + +Hades of Hymen! Red, are you making calls this morning?" + +"Why not? I'm not to be married till noon, am I?" + +"I say, take me with you, will you? I want to go along with a +man who has the nerve to see patients up to the last minute +before his wedding!" + +"Takes less nerve than to sit around and wait for the fateful +hour, I should say. Come on, if you think you'll have time to +dress when you get back. It may be close work." + +"Haven't you got to dress yourself?" demanded Arthur Chester, +settling himself in the car beside its driver. "Or shall you +go to the altar in tweeds with April mud on your boots?" + +"Rather than not get there, yes. But I can dress in half the +time you can - always could, and necessity has developed the +art. Look here, there isn't any April mud. The roads are +fine." + +"Oh, I suppose if I were booked for a wedding journey in the +Green Imp before the leaves were fairly out I shouldn't be +able to see any mud myself. As it is, well, I don't know the +colour of the bride's motoring clothes, but I presume they'll +be adapted to the circumstances. I never saw her look +anything but ready for whatever situation she happened to be +in. That's a trick that'll serve her many a good turn as the +wife of R. P. Burns, M.D., eh, Red?" + +The Imp whirled about the country all the morning, having made +an early start. The car was in fine fettle, like a horse that +has been trained for a race. Although it was beginning its +second season it had never been in better trim for business. +The engine, having been cared for and seldom abused, was +running more smoothly than when it had been first put upon the +road. The Imp had had a fresh coat of the dark-green which +gave it its name, and its brasswork was shining as only Johnny +Caruthers by long and untiring labors could make metal shine. +It had that morning acquired a luggage-rack attached to its +rear, which was soon to receive a leather-covered motor trunk +at that moment receiving its final consignments in the +Macauley house; and there were several other new fittings +about the machine which indicated that it was presently to be +put to uses which had never been required of it before. + +The Imp drew up in front of the hospital. Chester looked +anxiously at his watch for the twenty-seventh time that +morning. "For Heaven's sake, hurry, Red," he urged. "Women +are the dickens about having a wedding late, and it's ten +minutes of eleven now. Noon comes sure and soon, and at noon, +allow me to remind you - " + +Burns nodded. "Keep cool, boy," he recommended. "No use +getting excited before a critical operation." + +But he disappeared at a pace fast enough to satisfy Chester, +who sat back and said to himself that R. P. had come nearer +giving the crisis before him its appropriate name than he had +ever heard done before. + +He became anxious again, however, before Burns returned, and +his watch was in his hand when the prospective bridegroom +bolted out of the hospital door and ran for his car as if he +had not a moment to spare. + +"Glad to see you're losing your head a trifle at last," +commented Chester as the Imp turned a dizzy curve and shot +away. "It's the only proper thing. But we've really enough +time if you don't stop anywhere else. What's the matter? +Good Lord, man, you'll get nabbed if you speed up like this +within limits. You - " + +"Cut it and don't talk. I've got to make time," was all the +answer or explanation he received; and Chester, with the +wisdom of long association with Red Pepper at his pepperest, +obeyed. + +As they approached the house Burns spoke for the first time +since they had left the city. "Go in and tell the bunch I +have to do an operation at the hospital as quick as I can get +my stuff and drive back there. I'll be back at - " + +"Great Christopher, man! But - " + +"I can be back by two. Ellen will understand." + +"The deuce she will! Don't ask me to explain to her." + +"I won't. I'll do it myself. You tell the rest." + +The Imp shot up the driveway. Burns jumped out and ran to his +office. Five minutes later, instrument bag in hand, he ran +out again, Miss Mathewson following. He bolted in at the +Macauleys' front door. Chester had already broken the +incredible news to Martha Macauley and was standing out a +storm of expostulations and reproaches, as if by any chance +anybody could expect Arthur Chester to be able to stop R. P. +Burns when be had started upon any course of action +whatsoever. But when Burns himself appeared at the doorway +the situation came to a crisis. Towering beside a group of +palms which decorated the foot of the staircase Burns demanded +to see Ellen. + +"Why, Red, you can't. She's - besides how can you - " + +"Ask her to come where I can speak to her then. Quick, +please." + +"But she - " + +There was no knowing how long the sparring might have lasted, +or what extreme measures might have been taken, had not a +figure in a floating lilac-and-white garment, with two long +braids of dark hair hanging over its shoulders, appeared upon +the staircase landing. Burns looked up, saw it, and was up +the stairs to the landing before Chester could flick an +eyelash. + +"Dear, to save a life I want to delay things just two hours. +There's nobody else to do it. Van Horn was taken ill just as +he was getting ready. The only other man who would venture +under the conditions - Grayson - is out of town." + +His arms were about her as she stood a step above him. So, +her eyes were level with his. + +"Do it, of course," she whispered. "And take my love with +you." + +For one minute Burns stayed to tell her that he had known she +would send him to his duty, then he was off. The door slammed +behind him, and outside the Imp's horn sent back a parting +salute. + +>From the bottom stair Martha Macauley, distressed young matron +and hostess, gazed up at her sister, who, with arms leaning on +the vine-wreathed rail at the landing, was smiling down at +her. + +"Ellen! Was ever anything so crazy! I did suppose Red would +take time enough to be married in. There's everybody coming." + +"So few you can easily telephone them all to wait." + +"And the breakfast under way - " + +"It will keep." + +"Aren't you superstitious enough not to want to postpone your +wedding?" demanded Martha urgently. + +The dark braids of hair swung violently as the bride's head +was emphatically shaken. "Martha! Take it back! Let +somebody die because I was afraid to wait two hours?" + +"I don't believe anybody would die," insisted Martha. +"Somebody could be found. It's just Red's ridiculous craze +for surgery. I always said he'd rather operate than eat. +Now, it seems he'd rather operate than be - " + +But at this moment a large, determined hand came over her +mouth from behind, as James Macauley, junior, arriving upon +the scene, asserted his authority. He was in bathrobe and +slippers, having been excitedly interviewed by Chester through +the bathroom door. + +"Quit fussing, Marty. The thing can't be helped, and if Ellen +doesn't mind I don't know why we should. If we were having a +houseful it would be fierce, but with only ourselves and the +Chesters and the minister's family and Red's people - I'll go +telephone Mr. Harding now." + +As Martha freed herself from the silencing hand the front door +opened again. This time it was Mrs. Richard Warburton - +Burns's young sister Anne - also in somewhat informal attire, +over which she had thrown an evening coat. She surveyed the +group with laughing eyes. She herself had been married within +the year. + +"It's absurd, isn't it?" she cried. "But it's just like Red. +Ellen knows that, don't you, dear? Ellen'll not only take him +for better and for worse, but for present and for absent - +mostly absent! But we're rather proud of him over at the +house. Father's walking up and down and saying no other +fellow would have done it, and Mother's all tearful and +smiling. Dick wanted to go in with him, but of course Miss +Mathewson had to go: he seldom operates without her." + +"It's so uncertain when he'll get back," mourned Martha, still +unreconciled. + +"I made Miss Mathewson promise to telephone, the moment she +should know. It's lucky the wedding guests are all in the +family, isn't it? Ellen, dear" - pretty Anne ran up the +stairs to the landing - "I really don't see how, after he +caught sight of you in that fascinating garb, with your hair +down, he could ever tear himself away! You're positively the +loveliest thing I ever saw in all my life, and I'm almost out +of my senses with joy that you're to be my sister, even though +I never saw you in the world till yesterday! I always said +when Red did care for anybody for keeps, she'd be a jewel!" + +Red Pepper came back at precisely twenty minutes of three. +His patient had given him a bad hour of anxiety immediately +after leaving the table, and he could not desert her until she +had rallied. But he felt easy about her now, and he had +arranged to leave her in Buller's hands - Buller, who did not +do major surgery himself, but was a most competent man when it +came to the care of surgical patients after operation. Burns +brought Amy Mathewson back with him, though she had begged to +be allowed to stay with the case. + +"And not be at my wedding?" cried Red Pepper, in exuberant +spirits. "Why, I couldn't be properly married without you to +see me through!" + +Upon which she had smiled and obeyed him, and taken a tighter +grip upon herself as he put her into the Green Imp for the +last ride together. That was what it was to her, though she +might yet go with him a thousand times to help him in his +work. To him it was a quick and joyful journey back to his +marriage. + +"All right, Mother and Dad!" he exulted, coming in upon them +in their festal array. He shook hands with his father and his +brother-in-law; he kissed his mother. Then he ran for his own +room where Bobby Burns, just being finished off by Anne, +herself superbly dressed, shrieked with rapture at the sight +of him. + +"Red! At last! I've laid everything ready; you've only to +jump into your bath; I turned on the water when Dick saw the +Imp down the road. Don't you dare have a vestige of a +surgical odour about you when you come out!" + +In precisely seventeen minutes and. three-quarters the +bridegroom was ready to the last coppery affair on his head. + +"Have I a `surgical odour,' Anne?" he asked as he came up to +her. + +She buried her face on his shoulder, both arms about him, +regardless of her finery. "You're the dearest, sweetest old +trump of a brother that ever lived, and you smell like +sunshine and fresh air!" she cried. Whereat he shook with +laughter and patted her back as she clung to him, + +"Promise me, Red," she begged, lifting her head, "that you +won't let anything - anything - keep you from going off with +Ellen in the Imp. She's been so lovely about this horrid +delay, but I'm always suspicious of you. Promise!" + +"I promise you this," agreed her brother: "Wherever the Imp +and I go, after the minister has said the words, for this two +weeks Ellen shall go with me." + + + +"Chester," said Dick Warburton as he stood in that gentleman's +company, looking over a stupendous assortment of wedding +gifts, which, in spite of the fact that nobody outside the +family had been asked to see Redfield Pepper Burns married, +overflowed two large rooms into the upper hall and almost over +the railing, "will you tell me who in the name of time sent +that rat-trap? This is the most extraordinary display of +gold, silver, and tinware that I ever saw, and I'm at the end +of my astonishment. But that rat-trap, is it a joke?" + +"No joke whatever -," declared Chester. "It comes from one of +R, Red's - devoted friends - his own invention. And the point +of the thing is that the making of that rat-trap is going to +be the making of the worst dead-beat of a patient Red ever +stood by. I really believe Joe Tressler's going to get a +patent on it, which also will be Red's doing. But this is a +special, particular rat-trap made of extra fine materials, +suitable for a wedding gift!" + +"Well, well," mused Burns's brother-in-law. "And what +millionaire sent the diamond pendant? By Jove, I haven't seen +finer jewels than those this side of the water." + +"That came from the Walworths, I believe. Take it all +together, it's a great collection, isn't it? It shows up the +odder because Ellen wouldn't have the freak grateful-patient +gifts put to one side - or even thrown into a sort of refining +shadow. Fix your eye on that rainbow quilt, will you, Dicky, +alongside of the Florentine tapestry? That quilt would put +out your eye if you gazed upon it steadily, so let up on it by +regarding this match-safe. Wouldn't that - " + +"That came from Johnny Caruthers," said a richly modulated low +voice behind him. "Please set it down carefully, Mr. Arthur +Chester." + +The two men wheeled to see the bride come to the defense of +her wedding gifts. Behind her loomed her husband, laughing +over her head, his eyes none the less tender, like hers, for +the queer presents which meant no less of love and gratitude +than the costlier gifts, of which there was no mean array. + +"I see you've married him, patients and all, Ellen Burns," +declared Richard Warburton. "On the whole, it's your wisest +course. The less he knows you mind their devotion to him - " + +"Mind it!" She gave him the flash of which the soft black eyes +were brilliantly capable. "Dick, I have no gift I like so +well as that rat-trap. You don't know the story, but I do, +and it means to me - fidelity to duty. And if there's one +great big thing in the world I think it's that!" + +Over her head, Dick Warburton nodded at his brother-in-law. +"I'm glad we've got her into the family, Red," said he. "It's +a mighty rare thing to find a beautiful woman who knows how to +dress like a picture, with that ideal at the back of her head! +'Cherish her, Red. If you don't I'll come around and knock +you down!" + +"I'll let you do it," agreed Burns soberly. All his marriage +vows were in his face. + +It was quite dusk when the Green Imp got away. Johnny +Caruthers had the satisfaction of lighting up the car's lamps +- always a joy to him, and particularly so to-night, for even +the oil taillight bore witness to his trimming and polishing +till its red eye could gleam no brighter. As for the front +lamps and the searchlight the Imp's progress would be as down +an avenue of brilliance if its driver allowed them all full +play upon the road. + +"She's in great trim, Johnny," said Burns's voice in his ear. +"I like her looks immensely. I shall hate to get a speck of +mud on her." + +"Meaning the lady, Doc?" asked Johnny anxiously. "There's a +wet bit there under the elms, Doc, remember. It would be a +pity to splash any mud on her!" + +He glanced toward the porch, his freckled face eloquent of his +admiration for the figure which was the centre of the group +gathered there. + +Burns's eyes followed his. Bob, a picturesque, small person +in his wedding attire of white linen, was attempting to tie +Ellen's motor-veil for her, as she stooped, smiling, to the +level of his eager little arms. It occurred to both master +and man, as they watched the child's efforts to adjust the +floating chiffon, that veils, however useful, were to be +regretted when they were allowed even partially to obscure +faces like those of Red Pepper's wife. + +"I meant the car, lad," explained Burns, laughing. "You've +done a great piece of work an her since I brought her home +this afternoon. I'm afraid you've done some last polishing +with your wedding clothes on, Johnny. Here's some, thing to +take the spots out." + +"Oh, Doc!" breathed the boy. "Not to-night, Let me do it - +for you - and her." + +The money went back into Burns's pocket, and his hand met +Johnny's in a hearty grasp. "That's better yet," said he, +"and thank you, John. If anybody but you were sending me off +I'd ask if everything was surely in the car But I'll not even +ask you." + +"You don't need to," vowed the boy proudly. "And there's some +things in you don't need to know about, just extrys in case of +breakdown." + +"Now, that," said his employer, "is what call proving one's +self a friend." + +The Imp went cautiously through the "wet bit," for it lay +under the corner arc-light, and Johnny Caruthers would be +watching. But, once on the open road outside the village, the +pace quickened. For late April the roads were not bad, and if +they had been sloughs the Imp Could have pulled through them. +She had a great power hidden away in those six cylinders of +hers, had the Imp. + +"You'll not mind if I stop at the hospital as we go through?" +questioned Burns. "Then we'll be off, out the old west road, +out of reach of telephones and summonses of any sort. But I +shall be just that much easier " + +"Do stop, please. I'm sure you'll be more satisfied and so +shall I" + +She sat quietly in the cat while he was gone looking up at the +lighted windows and thinking all sorts of sympathetic thoughts +concerning those inside -yet with a tiny fear in her heart +that he would find some new and unavoidable duty to detain +him. If he should + +But he was back, and as the Imp's searchlight fell upon his +face, returning, she read there that he was free. + +"Doing well, everything satisfactory, and I've not a care in +the world," he exulted as he leaped in. "Now we're off, and +never a stop till we've put a wide space between us and the +rest of them." + +The Green Imp ran at its quietest along the city streets. +then through the thinning suburbs, and finally, with the +lights all behind them, the open country ahead, the long, low +car came out upon the straight highway which leads a hundred +miles before it comes again to any but insignificant hamlets +and small, rustic inns. + +Burns had said little thus far, but as he glanced over his +shoulder at the now distant lights of the city he suddenly +spoke low, out of the quiet: + +"We're out of reach of everything and everybody; nobody even +knows the road we're taking. We're all alone in the world +together. You can't think what that means to me. I've lived +nine years at the call of every soul that wanted me: hardly a +vacation except for study. A fortnight seems pretty short +allowance for a honeymoon; we'll take a longer one when we go +to Germany in the fall. But - for two weeks " + +He looked down at her in the April starlight. He bent to +finish the statement, whatever it might have been, upon her +lips, for speech failed him. Then, with a happy laugh, he +gave the Green Imp her head. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Etext Red Pepper Burns, by Grace S. Richmond + |