Mrs. Red Pepper

A CRISIS

"Little wife?"

"Yes, Redfield Pepper—"

"I'm as nervous as a cat up a tree with a couple of dogs at the foot!"

"Why, Red, I never heard you talk of being nervous! What does it mean?"

"An operation to-morrow."

"But you never are 'nervous,' dear."

"I am now."

"Is it such a critical one?"

"The most critical I ever faced."

Ellen looked at her husband, or tried to look, for they were moving slowly along the street, at a late hour, Burns having suggested a short walk before bedtime. It was quite dark, and Ellen could judge only by her husband's voice that he spoke with entire soberness.

"Can you tell me anything about it?" she suggested, knowing that relief from tension sometimes comes with speech. Any confession of nervousness from Red Pepper Burns seemed to her most extraordinary. She knew that he often worked under tremendous tension, but he had never before admitted shakiness of nerve.

"Not much, if anything at all. It's a particularly private affair, for the present. It's a queer operation, too. I may not handle a knife, tie an artery, or stitch up a wound—may do less than I ever did in my life on such an occasion, yet—I'll be hanged if I'm not feeling as owly about it as if it were the first time I ever expected to see blood."

Ellen put her hand on his arm, slipped it into the curve, and kept it there, while he held it pressed close against him. "Red, have you been working too hard lately?" she asked.

"Not a bit. I'm fit as a fiddler. Don't worry, love. I've no business to talk riddles to you, of all people. But for a peculiar reason I'm horribly anxious about the outcome of to-morrow's experiment, and had to work it off somehow. Just promise me that when you say your prayers to-night you'll ask the good God not to let me be mistaken in forcing a situation I may not be able to control."

"I will," Ellen promised, with all her heart, for she saw that, whatever the crisis might be, it was one to which her usually daring husband was looking forward with most uncharacteristic dread.

She was conscious that Burns spent a restless night. At daybreak he was up and out of the house. Before he went, however, he bent over her and kissed her with great tenderness, murmuring, "A prayer or two more, darling, won't hurt anything, when you are awake enough. I've particular faith in your petitions."

She held him with both arms.

"Don't worry, Red. It isn't like you. You will succeed, if it is to be."

"It's got to be," he said between his teeth, as he left her.

He swallowed a cup of Cynthia's hot coffee—bespoken the night before, as on many similar occasions—and ran out to his car just as the slow September sunrise broke into the eastern sky. In two minutes more he was off in the Imp, flying out the road to Sunny Farm.

Arrived there he astonished Miss Dodge, the nurse in charge, who was not accustomed to Dr. Burns's ways. He had left the small patient, Jamie Ferguson, the night before, entirely satisfied with his condition for undergoing the operation set for nine o'clock this morning. He now went once more painstakingly over every detail of the preparation he had ordered, making sure for himself that nothing had been omitted.

Then he called for Miss Mathewson, who had spent the night at the Farm. She was to assist Leaver as she was accustomed to assist Burns. He took her off by herself and addressed her solemnly, more solemnly than he had ever done.

"Amy, if you ever had your wits on call, have them this morning. In all my life I never cared more how things went at a time like this. I care so much I'd give about all I own to know this minute that the thing would go through."

"Why, Dr. Burns," said she, in astonishment, "it should go through. It is a critical operation, of course, but the boy seems in very fair shape for it, and Dr. Leaver has done it before. Dr. Leaver is quite well now—"

"I know, I know. Feel of that!"

He touched her hand with his own, which was icy cold. She started, and looked anxiously at him.

"Doctor, you can't be well! This isn't you—to be so—nervous! Why, think of all the operations you've done, and never a sign of minding. And this isn't even your responsibility—it's Dr. Leaver's."

"That's right, scold me," said he, trying to laugh. "It's what I need. I'm showing the white feather, a hatful of them. But you're mistaken about one thing. It is my responsibility, every detail of it. Don't forget that. If the case goes wrong, it's my fault, not Dr. Leaver's."

Then he walked away, leaving Miss Mathewson utterly dumbfounded. She understood perfectly that Dr. John Leaver had suffered a severe breakdown from overwork, and that this was his first test since his recovery. But she knew nothing of the peculiar circumstances of his last appearance in an operating-room, and could therefore have no possible notion of the crisis this morning's work was to be to him. She did know enough, however, to be deeply interested in the outcome, and she watched the Green Imp flying down the road toward home with the sense that when it returned it would bear two surgeons for whom she must do the best work of support in her life.

"Ready, Jack?"

"Ready."

John Leaver took the seat beside Burns, giving the outstretched hand a strong grip. He carried no hand-bag, there was no sign of his profession about him. He had sent to Baltimore for his own instruments, but they were waiting for him in the little operating-room at Sunny Farm, having been through every rite practised by modern surgery.

The car set off.

"It's a magnificent morning," said Red Pepper Burns.

"Ideal."

"September's the best month in the year, to my fancy."

"A crisp October rivals it, to my notion."

"Not bad. There's a touch of frost in the air this morning."

"Quite a touch."

The car sped on. The men were silent. His one glance at his friend's face had showed Burns that Leaver had, apparently, his old quiet command of himself. But this, though reassuring, he knew could not be trusted as an absolute indication of control within. For himself, he had never been so profoundly excited in his life. He found himself wondering how he was going to stand and look on, unemployed, yet ready, at a sign, to take the helm. He felt as if that moment, if it should come, would find him as unnerved as the man he must help. Yet, with all his heart and will, he was silently assuring himself that all would go well—must go well. He must not even fear failure, think failure, imagine failure. Strong confidence on his own part, he fully believed, would be definite, if intangible, assistance to his friend....

Rounding a curve in the road, the white outlines of Sunny Farm house stood out clearly against the background of near green fields, and distant purple hills.

"House gets the sun in great shape mornings," observed Burns.

"The location couldn't be better," responded Leaver's quiet voice.

The car swung into the yard. The two men got out, crossed the sward, and stood upon the porch. Miss Mathewson met them at the door, her face bright, her eyes clear, only a little flush on either cheek betraying to Burns that she shared his tension.

"Jamie seems in the best of condition," said she.

"That's good—that's good," Burns answered, as if he had not made sure of the fact for himself within the hour.

"I will go in and see him a minute," Leaver said, and disappeared into Jamie Ferguson's room.

Outside Burns walked up and down the corridor, waiting, in a restlessness upon which he suddenly laid a stern decree. He stopped short and forced himself to stand still.

"You idiot," he savagely addressed himself, "you act like a fool medical student detailed to give an anesthetic at a noted surgeon's clinic for the first time. Cut it, and behave yourself."

After which he was guilty of no more outward perturbation, and, naturally, of somewhat less inner turmoil.

"Satisfied?" he asked of Leaver, as the other came out of Jamie's room.

Leaver nodded. "Rather better than I had hoped. He's a plucky little chap."

"You're right, he is."

The two went up to the dressing-room. Half an hour later, clad in white from head to foot, arms bare and gleaming, hands gloved, allowing assistants to open and close doors for them lest the slightest contamination affect their rigid cleanliness, they came into the operating-room. For the moment they were left alone there, while the nurses went to summon the bearer of the little patient. It was the moment Burns had dreaded, the stillness before action which most tries the spirit at any crisis.

He could not help giving one quick glance at his friend before he turned away to look out of the window with eyes which saw nothing outside it. In that instant's glance he thought the old Leaver stood before him, cool, collected, armed to the teeth, as it were, for the fight, and looking forward to it with eagerness. There had been possibly a slight pallor upon his face, as Miss Dodge had adjusted his mask of gauze, but, as Burns recalled it, this was a common matter with many surgeons, and it might easily have been characteristic of Leaver himself, even though Burns had not remembered it. His own heart was thumping heavily in his breast, as it had never thumped when he had been the chief actor in the coming scene.

"Lord, make him go through all right," he was praying, almost unconsciously, while he eyed the September landscape unseeingly, and listened for the sound of the stretcher bearers....

As they came in at the door Burns turned, and saw, or thought he saw, Leaver draw one deep, long breath. Then, in a minute or so, the fight was on. He remembered, of old, that there was never much delay after the distinguished surgeon saw his patient before him, had assured himself that all was well with the working of the anesthetic, and had taken up his first instrument....

Swift and sure moved Leaver's hands, obeying the swift, sure working of his brain. There was not a moment's indecision. More than one moment of deliberation there was, but Burns, watching, knew as well as if his friend had been a part of himself that the brief pauses in his work were a part of the work itself, and meant that as his task unfolded before him he stopped to weigh feasible courses, choosing with unerring judgment the better of two possible alternatives, and proceeding with the confidence essential to the unfaltering touch. As Burns beheld the process pass the point of greatest danger and approach conclusion, he felt somewhat as a man may who, unable to help, watches a swimmer breasting tremendous seas, and sees him win past the last smother of breakers and make his way into calmer waters. He was conscious that he himself had been breathing shallowly as he watched, and now drew several deep inspirations of relief.

"By George, that was the gamest thing I ever saw," thought Burns, exultingly. "He hasn't shown the slightest sign of flinching. And Amy Mathewson—she's played up to every move like a little second brain of his."

He looked at the small clock on a shelf of the surgery, and his head swam. "He's outdone himself," he nearly cried aloud. "This will stand beside anything he's ever done. If he'd been slower than usual it would have been only natural, after this interval, but he's been faster. Oh, but I'm glad—glad!"

The event was over. Both Leaver and Burns, no longer under the necessity of avoiding contact with things unsterilized, felt the small patient's pulse and nodded at each other. The assistants bore Jamie Ferguson's little inert body away, Miss Dodge attending.

Dr. Leaver turned to Miss Mathewson. He drew off the masking gauze from his head, showing a flushed, moist face and eyes a little bloodshot. But his voice was as quiet as ever as he said:

"I've never had finer assistance from any one, Miss Mathewson. If you had been trained to work opposite me you couldn't have done better."

"You work much like Dr. Burns," she said, modestly. "That made it easy."

Burns burst into a smothered laugh. "That's the biggest compliment I've had for a good while," said he.

As they dressed, neither man said much. But when coats were on, and the two were ready to go to Jamie's room, they turned each to the other.

"Well, old man?" Burns was smiling like the sunshine itself into his friend's eyes. "I think I never was so happy in my life."

"I know you're happy," said the other man. "I don't believe I'll trust myself yet to tell you what I am."

"Don't try. We won't talk it over just yet. But I've got to say this, Jack: You never did a more masterly job in your life."

Leaver smiled—and shivered. "I'm glad it's over," said he.

They went down to Jamie's room, and there, on either side of the high hospital cot, watched consciousness returning. With consciousness presently came pain.

"I'm going to stay with him," Leaver announced, by and by. Jamie's little, wasted hand was fast in his, Jamie's eyes, when they rested anywhere with intelligence, rested on his face—a face tender and pitiful.

"Good for you. I shall feel easier about him if you do," and Burns went away with the feeling that this course would be as good for the surgeon as for the patient.

He stopped in the lower hall to telephone Ellen.

"All safely over, dear," he said. "The patient doing well so far, and no reason why he shouldn't continue, as far as we can see."

"Oh, I'm so glad, Red," came back the joyous reply, and Burns responded:

"That goes without saying, partner. I'll tell you a lot more about it, now, when I get back."

The Green Imp went back at a furious pace. Half-way home, however, as it neared a figure walking by the roadside, it suddenly slowed down.

"Will you ride home, Miss Photographer?" Burns called. "Or do you prefer trudging all the way back with that camera and tripod?"

"I'm delighted to ride, Dr. Burns," replied Charlotte Ruston. "Captivating roadside views enticed me much farther than I intended, and the camera weighs twice what it did when I started."

"Jump in, then, and let me give you a piece of good news I'm bursting with," and Burns held out his hand for the camera. "You're getting a beautiful sunburn on that right cheek," he commented.

"I'll burn the left to match it, if you won't drive too fast. You'll have to go a little slower while you talk. I've noticed you're always silent when you're scorching along the road."

"So I am, I believe. Well, I'm not going to be silent now. I've just come from seeing Jamie Ferguson put on the road to future health and happiness, the good Lord willing—and I've a notion He is."

"Jamie—the little cripple who lies on his back?"

"The same. He'll lie on his back some time longer and then, I think, he'll get up."

"You operated on him to-day? How glad I am!"

"No, I didn't operate. It took a better man than I. I've never done this particular stunt, and Jamie was not a patient for experiment. Jack Leaver did the trick, and a finished trick it was, too. I'm so full of enthusiasm over his performance that I'm bursting with it, as I warned you."

Charlotte Ruston had turned suddenly to face him. As he looked at her, with this announcement, he had a view of lovely, startled eyes.

"What's the matter?" he asked, wondering. He had to look ahead at the road, but he cut down on the Imp's speed, so that he could spare a glance at his companion again. "You look as if I'd given you bad news instead of good."

"Oh, no!—oh, no!" she said, in odd, short breaths. "It's great—wonderful! Poor little fellow! I'm very glad. You said—Dr. Leaver did it? I was simply—surprised."

"Did it brilliantly. But there's no occasion for surprise about that. Having been in Baltimore as much as you have, you must know his position there. There's nobody with a bigger reputation."

"But I thought he had been—ill?"

"Tired out. Small wonder, at the pace he was going—the working pace, I mean. He never let up on himself. I got him here to rest up. He would have been off long ago if I would have given him leave, but I had his promise to keep away from work till he was thoroughly fit for it, so I've made the most of my chance. I shall never get another. If I know him he'll be back in his office before the week ends. Once give a chap like him a taste of work after idleness, and there's no use trying to hold him."

"You think him fully fit, now?"

"Never so fit in his life, if I'm any judge. I've seen him at work many a time, and I never saw finer methods than his to-day, his own or any man's—and I've watched some pretty smooth things. By the way, I understand you had met Dr. Leaver before you met him here?"

"Yes, I had met him."

Burns was not possessed of more than the ordinary amount of curiosity concerning other people's affairs, but he was accustomed to observe human nature and note its signs, and it struck him now rather suddenly that both John Leaver and Charlotte Ruston had seemed rather more than necessarily non-committal concerning an acquaintance which both admitted. He saw no reason why he should not ask a question or two. Asking questions was a part of his profession.

"I hope you've managed to coax him before your camera. He's looking so well now, I'd like a picture of him before he goes back and works himself down again."

"You might suggest it to him," said Miss Ruston. She was looking straight ahead. She wore a hat of white linen, of a picturesque shape, such as are in vogue in the country in warm weather, and it drooped more or less about her face. Burns could not see her eyes when she looked forward, but he could see her mouth. It was an expressive mouth, and it looked particularly expressive just now. The trouble was that he could not tell just what it expressed.

"I'll do it, this afternoon, and keep it as a reminder of a patient of whom I think a heap. No, I can't do it this afternoon, either, for he won't leave Jamie till he can leave him comfortably over the first stage. But by to-morrow afternoon, perhaps. We'll have to catch him on the fly, for I'm confident he'll be off the minute the youngster is out of danger. Well, I hope you know my friend well enough to appreciate that he's about the finest there is anywhere?"

"I'm beginning to know you well enough, Dr. Burns, to see that you care more to have your friends appreciated than to win praise yourself."

"No, no—oh, Cesar, no! I've not reached such a sublime height of altruism as that. To tell you the honest truth—which is supposed to be good for the soul—I'm horribly envious of Jack Leaver for having done that stunt this morning."

"Envious? Of course you are. At the same time would you have taken it away from him and have done it yourself, if you had had the chance?"

"Trust a woman to confront a man with the unthinkable, and then expect him to take credit for not having been guilty of it! Would I have snatched a juicy bone away from a starving lion? That's what Leaver has been all these months. It's what any man gets to be when his job is taken away from him and he doesn't know when he will get another. No—at the same time that I'm envious I'm genuinely happy that the lion got his bone. He needed it. It's going to make a well lion of him; he is one now. You're glad, too, aren't you?"

He gave her one of his quick, discerning glances.

"Of course I am." She spoke quite heartily enough to satisfy him.

"Good! Then, if I can wheedle him before the camera, you'll be interested in making a picture of him that Ellen and I shall want to frame and look at every day?"

"I will give you my amateur's best, certainly, Dr. Burns."

"Prunes and prisms!" he exclaimed, and broke into a laugh. "I didn't expect that, from a girl like you. I should have expected you to—well, never mind. I was on the verge of being impertinent, I'm afraid. Forgive me, will you, for what I might have said? I'll bring him over at the first opportunity."

BEFORE THE LENS

"Red, this is certainly the unkindest cut of all! I haven't minded your other prescriptions, but to insist on giving a well man the worst dose of his experience to take—"

"Stuff and nonsense! A bad prescription—to go across the street and let the prettiest photographer in the United States take a sun picture of you before you leave town? Besides, you owe it to us. I haven't the smallest kind of a likeness of you. I want a nice big one, to use in my advertisements. I only wish I had a picture of you 'as you were,' to put beside the 'as you are.' It would be telling. 'The great Burns's greatest cure. The celebrated Leaver of Baltimore as he was when Burns finished with him.' I'll send you a dozen copies of the paper."

"Please, Dr. Leaver." Mrs. Red Pepper Burns added her plea. "Red really wants it very much, and so do I. You admit you have no photograph to send us, and we know quite well you won't go and have one made by Mr. Brant, as you should. So please let Miss Ruston try her art. We think you owe it to us."

Leaver looked at her, and his determined lips relaxed into a smile. "I admit that argument tells, Mrs. Burns," he said. "I suppose it is ungracious of me, but, to tell the truth, I've always preferred to be able to say I had no portraits of myself."

"Oh, I see," Burns broke in. "We're not considering, Ellen, the urgent demands for a popular bachelor surgeon's photograph. It's precisely like Jack not to hand them out to the ladies, or to the newspaper men. All right, old chap. Give us what we want and we'll have the plate smashed. Now will you be good? Come, let's go over. If you really mean to leave to-night this is our last chance."

The two men crossed the street, in the mellow September sunshine. Burns preceded Leaver and knocked at the door.

"Will you take a shot at my friend before he goes?" Burns asked Charlotte. "He hates standing up to be shot at, but I have him primed for the ordeal."

"Must it be a shot, or may I make a portrait?" asked the photographer, in her professional manner.

"I want a portrait," replied Burns, promptly. "Your best indoor work—Brant and the Misses Kendall put on their mettle to rival it."

While Charlotte was absent, making ready her plates, her visitors waited in the little living-room and looked about it. Its walls were now possessed of many interesting photographs of people in the village, among them several of Burns himself, at which he gazed with a quizzical expression.

"She certainly succeeds in making a hero of me, doesn't she?" he observed. "Red hair turns dusky before the camera, luckily for me. I look as if there wasn't much of anything I couldn't do, including playing leading man in a melodrama—eh?"

"She has caught the personality, cleverly enough," Leaver commented, looking over Burns's shoulder.

"I rather think, though," mused Burns, "that I don't look so much as if there wasn't anything I couldn't do as that I thought there wasn't. There's a difference, Jack,—eh? Do I really seem as ready to bounce out of my chair and tackle somebody as that picture makes me look? If I do I need to have a tourniquet applied somewhere about my neck to stop the flow of blood to my bumptious head."

Smiling, Leaver studied the photograph in question. "It's the best I ever saw of you. It's precisely that air of being all there and ready for action which is your most endearing characteristic. It is the quality which made me willing to put myself in your hands last April."

"Much obliged. But you didn't put yourself in my hands. I laid hands on you and tied you down. I couldn't do it now, though," and Burns turned to survey his friend with satisfaction. "You are in elegant trim, if I do say it who shouldn't, and that's why I want a picture of my handiwork—and Nature's. It's just possible that Nature deserves some credit, not to mention Amy Mathewson. By the way, she's another who must have this portrait of you, my boy."

"She certainly shall, if she cares for it," admitted Leaver, gravely. "I'm very willing to remind her how much I owe her, in that and better ways."

Charlotte appeared. As she set about her work Bob came racing over the lawn and in at the open door.

"Uncle Red, somebody wants you right away quick!" he announced.

"Just my luck! I wanted to help pose the picture," grumbled Burns, but went off, the boy on his shoulder shouting with delight.

The photographer, in the plain dress of dull blue, which, artist-wise, she had chosen as her professional garb, and in which she herself made a picture to be observed with enjoyment, moved deftly about the room arranging her lights and shadows. This done, she turned to her sitter. When she came in he had been standing before a set of prints upon the wall, studying them critically, but from the moment of her entrance he had been watching her, though he held a photograph in his hand with which he might have seemed to be engaged.

"Ready?" she asked, smiling. "Or, rather, as ready as you ever will be?"

"Does my reluctance show as plainly as that? But I am quite ready now to do your bidding."

"Sit down in that chair, please. But first—I really can't wait longer to ask you—how is Jamie Ferguson?"

"Doing finely." His face lighted with pleasure at the thought.

"Will he have the full use of his poor little legs?"

"It is too soon to say positively. We hope quite confidently for that result. He shows better powers of recuperation than we dared expect."

"Yesterday," said Charlotte, her hand on a certain bulb out of sight, "Miss Mathewson told me something Jamie had said. It was the most extraordinary thing—"

She related the incident, in which the lad had shyly praised both Leaver and Burns as seeming to him like big brothers. She told it with animation, her watchful eyes on her sitter's face. At a certain point, just before the climax of the story, she gave the bulb a long, slow pressure; then, ending, she remarked:

"Now, if you are ready, Dr. Leaver."

His face immediately grew grave, lost its expression of interested attention, and set in lines of resignation. She went through a number of motions and announced that the sitting was over.

"It wasn't so bad, was it?" she questioned, gayly, as she removed the plate she had used. "I'm not even going to try again. I've discovered that it's not always best to repeat an attempt, and when you are pretty sure you have what you want, it doesn't pay."

"Thank you for making the operation so nearly painless. I haven't had a photograph taken since I was a medical student, and I wasn't prepared for so short a trial. But, even so, I felt the desperateness of the situation. Doubtless that will show plainly in the final result."

"Mine is a discreet camera, and doesn't tell all it sees, so it is possible it may keep your reluctance disguised."

She took away the plate, left him for a few minutes alone among the photographs, and returned.

"It is quite all right, I think, Dr. Leaver," she said, "and the agony is over. You are leaving town to-day?"

He rose. "I go to-night. I should have come to say good-bye, in any case, but, as I go out to Sunny Farm for one more look at the boy, I must be off. So—I'll make this the good-bye."

"I hope you'll have the busiest, happiest sort of winter," she said, in the charming, friendly way which was naturally her own. "So busy and so happy you'll forget this long, trying time of waiting to be well. Surely, the rest—and Dr. Burns—have done the work. When you see the portrait I hope it will show you, better than looking at yourself in any mirror, what good has been done."

"Thank you. I know a great change has been wrought, somehow, thanks to a man who insisted on having his own way when I didn't want to let him. You expect to stay in this cottage all winter?"

"All winter, and all spring. Imagine us by a splendid fire in this good fireplace."

"I hope it won't smoke on windy days." Leaver looked doubtfully at it. "It strikes me as better photographic material than as practical defence against the cold."

"I shall demonstrate that it is entirely practical. And Granny's little feet will seldom touch the floor. I have a beautiful foot-warmer for her, which will keep her snug as comfort."

"I know you have a strong courage, and will face any discomfort bravely."

His eyes were dwelling upon her face, noting each outline, as if he meant to take the memory of it with him.

"All the courage in the world. What would life be without it? With it, one can do anything."

"I believe you." He was silent for a moment, still looking at her intently. "I wonder," he said then, "if you would be willing to give me something I very much want. I have no right to ask it, and yet, for the sake of many pleasant hours we have spent together—that's a tame phrase for me to use of them, from my standpoint—for their sake would you be willing to let me have—a picture of yourself? I promise you it shall be seen by no one but myself. It would mean a good deal to me. Yet, if you are not entirely willing, I won't ask it."

He spoke in the quietest, grave way. After a moment's hesitation she answered him as quietly.

"I don't know why I should mind, Dr. Leaver, and yet, somehow, I find I do. Will you believe it's not because I don't want to please you?"

His face showed, in spite of him, that the denial hurt him. He held out his hand.

"You are quite right to be frank. Shall we say good-bye? All kinds of success to you this winter—and always."

"Thank you, Dr. Leaver. I give you back the wish."

They shook hands, the two faces smiling at each other. Then he went quickly away. Looking after him she saw that he carried his hat in his hand until he had reached the gate in the hedge. He closed the gate without a backward glance, and in a minute more was out of sight.

She went into her dark-room and examined again the plate she had just developed. Holding it in a certain light, against darkness, she was able to obtain a faint view of the picture as it would be in the print. Unquestionably she had made a lifelike and extraordinarily attractive portrait of a man of distinguished features, caught at a moment when he had had no notion that the thing was happening. She studied it long and attentively.

"It would have been better if I hadn't made it," she said slowly to herself. "For now I shall have it to look at, and I shall have to look at it. I'm not strong enough—not strong enough—I don't want to be strong enough—to forego that!"

After nightfall, on that September evening, Leaver took his departure. Burns was to convey him in the Imp to the city station, because his train did not stop in the suburban village. For a half-hour before his going Burns's porch was full, the Macauleys and the Chesters having come over to do Dr. Leaver honour. They found less chance for talking with him than they might have done if he had not gone off with Miss Mathewson for a short walk.

"Something in it, possibly, do you think?" James Macauley asked, in an aside, of Mrs. Burns. "Miss Mathewson certainly has developed a lot of good looks this summer that I, for one, never suspected her of before. Whether she could interest a man like him I don't know and can't guess. He's no ordinary man. I didn't like him much at first, but as he's improved in health he's shown up for what he is, and I can understand Red's interest in getting him on his feet again. He's certainly on 'em now. That was a great stunt he did for the little chap, according to Red. Looks a bit suggestive of interest, his going off with Miss Amy for a walk, at the last minute, don't you think? Still, I can't imagine any man's looking in that direction when there's what there is across the street. He hasn't shown any signs of life, there, has he?"

"Jimmy, you're a sad gossip. If I knew all these people's affairs, or if I knew none of them, I shouldn't discuss them with you. But I'm quite willing to agree with you that both Amy and Charlotte are delightful, each in her way."

"Never did get any satisfaction out of you," grumbled James Macauley, good humouredly. "I didn't suppose women had such a fine sense of honour when it came to talking over other women."

"Then it's time you found it out."

"What's this? Ellen giving you hot shot?" Burns came up, watch in hand. "It's time those people were back. They've probably fallen into a discussion of surgical methods, and forgotten the time."

The missing pair presently appeared. James Macauley looked curiously at them, but could detect no sign of sentiment about them. Indeed, as they came up the walk Leaver's voice was heard saying in a most matter-of-fact way:

"I'll send you a reprint on that subject. You'll find the German notion has completely changed—completely. Nothing has happened in a long time that so marks advance in research along those lines."

"He's safe," the observer whispered to Mrs. Burns. "No fun to be had out of that. Unless—he was clever enough to change his line when he came within earshot. It has been done, you know. I've done it myself, though I never jumped to German reprints as a safety station. But, you can usually tell by the woman. She looks as if she had merely been out for a nice walk. Not a hair out of place, no high colour, no—"

Ellen moved away from him. She was conscious that she, too, had been noting signs, but she would not join him further in discussing them.

"I am not good at farewell speeches," said John Leaver, holding Ellen's hand in both his own, when he had taken leave of every one else. "I only hope I can show you, somehow, how I feel about what you and your husband have done for me. I tried to tell Miss Mathewson something of the same thing, but she wouldn't have it, which was fortunate, for the words stuck in my throat."

Burns took him away. "If they hadn't, you'd have missed your train. We've got to make time, now."

As he took his place in the Green Imp Leaver looked across the street at the cottage back among the trees. Its windows were quite dark, although the hour was barely ten o'clock. Burns looked over, too.

"By the way," he said, as they moved away, "why wasn't Miss Ruston among the crowd assembled to see you off? As an acquaintance of yours in Baltimore she ought to join in the send-off back to that town."

"She gave me her good wishes this afternoon, after taking the photograph. Red, speaking of Baltimore, when are you coming down?"

"When I get a card saying you are holding a clinic on a subject I'm anxious to see demonstrated."

"Do you expect me to go to holding clinics?"

"Surest thing in the world. You can't keep out of them."

"Do you suppose the men who saw my breakdown will be eager to welcome me back?"

"No question of it. Good Lord, man, you're not the first nor the ten-thousandth man who has broken down from overwork. Because my axe becomes dull I'm not going to refuse to use it when it comes back from the grindstone with a brighter edge than ever on it, am I? Wait till you see your reception. Some of those fellows have been making a lot of mistakes in your absence—have been trying to do things too big for them. They'll be only too glad to turn some of their stunts over to you. And the big ones, who are your friends, will rejoice at sight of you. Of course you have rivals; you don't expect them to welcome you with open arms. They'll be sorry to see you back. Let them be sorry, and be hanged to them! Go in and show them that they're the ones who need a rest now, and that you'll take care of their work in their absence."

Leaver laughed. "Red, there's nobody just like you," he said.

"That's lucky. Too many explosives aren't safe to have around. I know, and have known all along, Jack, that it's been like a cat lecturing a king, my advice to you. A better simile would be the old one of the mouse gnawing the lion out of the net. If I've done anything for you, that's what I've done."

Leaver turned in his seat. "Red," said he—and his voice had a deep ring in it as he spoke—"you're about the biggest sized mouse I ever saw. I want to tell you this: Since I've been watching your work up here I've conceived a tremendous admiration for your standards. There are none finer, anywhere. I've come to feel that you couldn't do anything bigger or better in the largest place you could find. Indeed, this, for you, is the largest place, for you fill it as another man couldn't."

"The frog, in the marsh, where he lived, was king," Burns quoted, in an effort at lightness, for he was deeply touched.

"That's not the sort of king you are. You would be king anywhere. But you're willing to rule over a kingdom that may look small to some, but looks big as an empire to me, now that I understand. I've reached this point: I am almost—and sometime I expect to be entirely—glad that the thing happened to me which brought me here to you. You have done more for me than any man ever did. And there's one thing I think I owe to you to tell you. The greatest thing I've learned from you, though you haven't said much about it, is faith in the God above us. I'd about let go of that when I came here. Thanks to you, I've got hold of it again, and I mean never to let go. No man can afford to let go of that—permanently."

Burns was silent for a moment, in answer to this most unexpected tribute, silent because he could find no words. When he did speak there was a trace of huskiness in his voice. "I'm mighty glad to know that, Jack," he said simply.

Then, presently, for they had flown fast over the smooth road, they were entering the city limits, traversing a crowded thoroughfare, and approaching the great station on whose tower the illuminated face of the clock warned them there was little time to spare. Arrived there, every moment was consumed in a rush for tickets and in checking baggage. Leaver secured his sleeper reservation with some difficulty, owing to a misunderstanding in the telegram engaging it, and at the last the two men had to run for the train. At the gate there was only space for a hasty grip of two warm hands, a smile of understanding and affection, and an exchange of arm-wavings at a distance as Leaver reached his car, already on the verge of moving out.

As Burns drove away he was feeling a sense of loneliness as unpleasant as it was unexpected, and found himself longing to get back to a certain pair of arms whose hold was a panacea for every ache.

"He thinks he owes it all to me," he was saying by and by, when this desirable condition had been fulfilled. "But maybe I don't owe something to him. If the sight of a plucky fight for self-control is a bracing tonic to any man I've had one in watching him. I never saw a finer display of will against heavy odds. Another man in the shape he was in last spring would have gone under."

"It would be pretty difficult, I think, dear," said his wife, softly touching his thick locks, as his head lay on her lap, "for any man to go under with you pulling him out."

"I didn't pull him out. No man in creation can pull another out, no matter how strong his effort. The chap that's in the current has got to do every last ounce of the pulling himself. I don't say God can't help, for I'm positive He can, but I don't think a man can do much. And it's my belief that even God helps chiefly through making the man realize that he can help himself."

"For which office he sometimes appoints a man as his human instrument, doesn't he?"

Burns turned his head and touched his lips to the hand which had laid itself against his cheek.

"Perhaps, when he can't find a woman. As a power conductor she is the only, original, copper wire!"

The curiosity which James Macauley had freely expressed as to the probable degree of friendship between Leaver and Amy Mathewson, developed by months of close association, was, with him and with others, not unnatural. But, in Ellen's case, the desire to know just how much the situation had meant to Amy herself, was a result of her increasingly warm affection for a young woman of character and personal attractiveness, mingled with a sense of her own and her husband's responsibility in bringing together two people who might be expected to emerge from the encounter not a little affected by it.

On the morning after John Leaver's departure, Ellen, standing at a window, found herself watching with more than ordinary intentness the face of Amy as she came up the walk to the house. Lest Leaver should realize to what an extent his presence had disturbed the regular routine of Burns's office, Amy had not been allowed to resume her position according to the old régime, but had spent only a portion of her time there, more as a guest of the house might assume certain duties than as a regularly hired assistant would attend to them. This was, therefore, the first time, since Leaver had left the confinement in his room, that Amy Mathewson had appeared in the office in her old rôle, announced by the donning of her uniform.

"I certainly don't see any unhappiness there," said Ellen to herself, watching Amy as she stooped to pick up an early fallen scarlet leaf upon the lawn. She fastened it upon the severe whiteness of her attire, then came on to the house with an alert step, as if she approached work she looked forward to with zest. Her colour was more vivid than it had been last June, when first she began to live the outdoor life with her patient, her eyes were brighter, her whole personality seemed somehow more significant. Ellen had noted in her these signs of enriched life many times before during these weeks; but the fact that Amy's aspect, on the day after the departure of her comrade of the summer, seemed to have suffered no change, but that her whole air, as she came to her old task, was that of one who hastens to a congenial appointment, gave to Ellen a distinct sense of relief from an anxiety she had suffered from time to time throughout the whole experience.

Burns had gone away early, summoned by an insistent call, and the office was empty. Knowing this, Ellen went in to greet her friend. There could be no other term, now, for the whole-hearted bond between the two.

"Isn't it glorious, this touch of frost in the air?" Amy came in smiling, her cheeks bright with the sting of the early October morning. "And to-day—to-day, at last, I am free to go to work as I like. I don't believe Dr. Burns has sent out a bill for three months. He would go bankrupt before he would tell a man what he owed him."

"Do you like sending out bills so well as that?" Ellen asked, incredulous.

"I like anything that means being at work again, without having to play that I'm a lady of leisure at any moment that anybody wants my company. I like to have things methodical and systematic. I don't even mind sending out bills, when I know they should be sent."

She stirred about the office, getting out her typewriter and oiling it, while the two talked of various things. Her whole manner was consistent with her words: she seemed to be full of the very joy of living. It occurred to Ellen once to wonder if, by any possibility, this could be the result of expectation of future continuance of her friendship with Leaver. But something happened presently which, though but a simple incident enough, and all in the day's routine, made any such supposition seem most unlikely.

The telephone bell rang. Ellen saw Amy's face change at the first sound of her questioner's voice, with that subtle change which sometimes tells more than the person engaged in this form of communication realizes.

"Yes, Dr. Burns," she said. "Yes ... Yes ... Yes ... Yes, I can have everything ready in an hour ... I will ... I won't forget one thing.... Yes ... Good-bye!"

Not an illuminating set of replies, given at long intervals which evidently spelled instructions from the other end of the wire. But Amy's voice was eager, her concise replies by no means veiled that fact, and Ellen could read, as plainly as if Amy had said it, that the voice which spoke to her was the one of all voices, as it had been for so long, which could give the commands she loved to obey.

She turned from the desk and looked at Ellen with the same animated expression of face. But even as she explained, she was taking instruments from their cases, setting out certain hand-bags, and preparing to fill them.

"It is an emergency case—operation—out in the country. Impossible to take the patient to the hospital; everything must be made ready on the spot. Dr. Burns is to come for me in an hour. He will let me stay with the case. It's work, Mrs. Burns; real work again, at last!"

"You extraordinary girl! A débutante, going to a party again, after enforced confinement at home, couldn't be gayer about it. I knew you loved your work, but I didn't know you loved it like that!"

"Didn't you?" Her hands moving swiftly, she seemed not to stop and think what was going to be wanted, she went from one preparation to another with swift, sure knowledge. "I'm not sure I did, myself, until I had to stop and take what was really just a long vacation, with hardly a thing to do. Vacations are very pleasant—for a while—but they may last too long."

"Evidently Dr. Leaver thought so, too. He seemed ready enough for work again."

"Of course he was. And work—and only work—will put him quite back where he was before the breakdown. I fully believe, Mrs. Burns, that labour is a condition of healthy life. And of the two evils, too much labour or too much idleness, the latter is the greater."

"You make me feel a drone," Ellen declared.

Amy gave her a quick, understanding glance.

"You? Oh, no, Mrs. Burns. You do the prettiest work in the world, and the most necessary."

"But yours is fine—wonderful."

"Not fine, nor wonderful. Dr. Burns's work is that. Mine is just—supplementary."

"But absolutely essential. How many times has he told me what he has owed you all these years for perfection of detail. He says he doubts if he himself could secure such perfection if it all depended upon his care."

Amy Mathewson bent suddenly over a strange looking instrument, whose parts she had been examining before putting them into the bag. Her fair cheek flushed richly. "I am glad to give him the best I can do," she said, quietly, yet Ellen could detect an odd little thrill in her voice.

Within herself Ellen understood the truth, which she had long ago guessed. And with it came a fresh revelation. This was the reason why Amy Mathewson could see, unmoved, the departure of Leaver, who had been so closely thrown with her all that strange summer. With the deep loyalty of a few rare natures, having once given her love, even though she received nothing but friendship in return, she could care for no future which did not include that friendship, dearer than the love of other men.

Ellen was still in the office, held there by a curious fascination of interest in Amy's rapid, skillful preparations. It meant so much, this operating at a country house, she explained to Ellen. It meant the working out of all manner of difficult details, that the final conditions might as closely as possible resemble those which were to be had, ready to hand, in the operating-room of any hospital.

"It's a serious handicap to a surgeon's best work," she asserted, "when he has to do it at a home. With all my precautions, I can never feel so sure of giving him perfect cleanliness of surroundings."

"You can, if any one can," Ellen said, feeling for the first time as she spoke, a curious little twinge of envy of the one whom her husband had long called, with affectionate familiarity, his "right-hand man."

Often as she had seen the two drive away together it seemed to her to-day that she looked at them with new eyes. Just as Amy set out the closed hand-bags, with a box and a bundle beside them, and donned hat and driving-coat, the Green Imp came rushing up the road and stopped in front of the house. Burns ran in, fired half a dozen rapid questions at Amy, nodding his head with approval at her answers, said, "All right, we're off," and picked up the hand-bags. Then he dropped them, snatched off his cap and strode over to his wife.

"We're in a mess of a hurry," he apologized, and kissed her as if he were thinking of something else, as he undoubtedly was. Then he seized the bags, Amy the box and bundle, and the two hurried out. A moment later Ellen saw the car start, getting under headway in twice its own length, and disappearing down the road in a cloud of dust.

"She would rather stay where she can help him than go away to a home of her own with any other man," Ellen said to herself; and the little twinge of envy became almost a pang. She stood staring out of the window, her dark eyes heavy with her thoughts, her lips taking on a little twist of pain. Then, presently, she lifted her head. "She will never, never let him know. He will never discover it for himself. But if she can find happiness in being of use to him, and he can reward her by being her good friend, why should I mind? Can't I be generous enough for that, when I know I have his heart? Her love for him won't hurt him. She can't take it back, but she will never let it show so that he can feel more of it than is good for him. It is so little for me to spare her—so much for her to have. I will be glad, I will be glad!"

She smiled at Bobby Burns, running up the walk, but, being a woman, she smiled through tears.

The little lad ran in. "Oh, Auntie Ellen," he cried, "do you care 'cause I gave my new ball away? It was a new boy came to school, all patched. He'd never had a ball in his life. Uncle Red said I had to be good to other boys, 'cause I've got so much more'n some of them. I sort o' wanted to keep the ball, too," he added, regretfully. "It was a dandy ball."

"But it was nice to give it away, too, wasn't it, Bob?"

He nodded, looking curiously up at her. "You're cryin', Auntie Ellen," he said, anxiously. "Does sumpin' hurt you?"

"Nothing that ought to hurt, dear. It's too bad that being generous does hurt sometimes. But it ought not to hurt, when we have so much more than some of the others, ought it, Bob?"

FLASHLIGHTS

"Please tilt your parasol back the least bit more, Miss Austin. That's it! Now walk toward me, up this path, till you reach the rosebush."

Miss Austin, a tall, thin young woman clad in white muslin and wearing also a prim expression with which her photographer had been struggling for some time in vain, obeyed these directions to the letter. Her lips in lines of order and discretion, her skirts hanging in perfect folds, she advanced up the straggling path, the picture of maidenly composure. The nearer she drew to the rosebush the more fixed became the look of meeting a serious obstacle and overcoming it by sheer force of will.

Charlotte Ruston, standing by her camera focussed on the spot of path beside the rosebush, drew a stifled, impatient breath. "I'm going to scream at her in a minute," she thought, "or fall in a faint. I wonder which would startle her out of herself most."

"Do you mind," she said aloud, "if I tell you how perfectly charming you look?"

Miss Austin's lips tightened into a little set smile, more artificial than ever. But just as she reached the rosebush a motor car rushed up the street and came to a standstill before the gate in Charlotte's hedge. Out of the car—a conspicuous affair of a strong yellow colour, and hitherto unseen in the town—descended a figure in a dust-coat, a figure upon which Miss Edith Austin had never set eyes before. Pausing by the rosebush she looked toward the scene at the gate, and her face relaxed into an expression of alert interest.

The camera clicked unnoticed. Quicker than a flash Charlotte had gone through a series of motions and had made a second exposure, smiling delightedly to herself.

"It's a gentleman to see you," called Miss Austin, softly, as the heavily built figure in the dust-coat opened the gate and advanced up the path.

Miss Ruston made all secure about her camera, and turned to meet the full and smiling gaze of the newcomer, standing, cap in hand, just behind her. He was a man who might have been thirty or forty—it would not have been easy for a stranger to tell which at first glance, for his fair hair was thick upon his head, his face fresh and unwrinkled, and his eyes bright. Yet about him was an air of having been encountering men and things for a long time, and of understanding them pretty well.

"Mr. Brant!" Charlotte's tone was that of complete surprise.

"You were not expecting me?" He shook hands, gazing at her in undisguised pleasure. He was not much taller than she, and the afternoon sun was at his back, so he had the advantage.

"I certainly was not. How does it happen? A business journey?"

"A most luckily opportune one—for me. It brought me within a hundred miles, and my descriptions to my friend of an interesting region did the rest."

His eyes swerved to the figure of Miss Edith Austin, standing tensely by the rosebush, an observer whose whole aspect denoted eager absorption in the meeting before her. Charlotte presented him. Miss Austin expressed herself as assured of his being a stranger to the town the moment her eyes fell upon him.

"And a very dusty and disreputable one, I'm afraid," Mr. Brant declared. "I should have stopped at some hotel and made myself presentable," he explained to Charlotte, "if I had not been afraid I should lose a minute out of the short time Van Schoonhoven agrees to leave me here."

Charlotte took him to the house and left him politely trying to converse with her grandmother—at tremendous odds, for he was not a rival of Red Pepper Burns in his fondness for old ladies, not to mention deaf ones. The photographer returned to her sitter.

"I have several pictures of you now, Miss Austin," she said, "and I think among them we shall find one you will like."

"But aren't you going to have one of this last pose?" Miss Austin inquired, anxiously. "Of course, I know you have company now—"

"That doesn't matter. But I have two exposures, by the rosebush, and I think they are both good. I have kept you standing for quite a long time, and I want you to see proofs of these before we try any more."

"I haven't once known when you were taking me. I can't help feeling that if you just let me know when you were going to take the picture I could be better prepared."

"One can be a bit too much prepared. The best one I ever had made of me was done an instant after I had carelessly taken a seat where the operator requested. I looked up and asked, 'How do you want me to sit?' He answered, 'Just as pleases you. I have already taken the picture.'"

"Dear me! How methods change! Our best photographer here is always so careful about every line of drapery, and just how you hold your chin I don't see how you can just snap a person and be sure of an artistic result."

"You can't. And perhaps you won't like these at all. But I will show you proofs to-morrow. And if they are not right we'll try again, if you are willing."

Miss Austin went away, parasol held stiffly above her head, though the sun was behind her. She was wondering, as she went, who the man was who had come to see Miss Ruston, and she arrived without much difficulty at the conclusion that he was probably going to marry her. His speech about being in such haste to reach her that he couldn't take time to go to a hotel and make himself neat seemed to her sure evidence that the two were upon a footing more intimate than that of mere friendship.

"If you are not too proud," said Miss Ruston to Mr. Eugene Brant, "you may come into the kitchen and wash your hands and face. Afterward you may stroll about my garden while I get supper."

"I am not too proud to wash my face in your kitchen," responded Mr. Brant, following her with alacrity, "but I shall not be willing to stroll about your garden while you get supper. After supper, if you like, we will explore it to its mystic end down by the currant bushes I see from the window here."

He accepted the basin of water Charlotte gave him, as gracefully as she presented it, dried his face upon the little towel she handed him, and declared himself much refreshed. She did not apologize for the lack of a guest-room where he might remove the signs of dusty travel, nor did she allude to the absence within the house of most of the appliances considered necessary in these days for creature comfort. But she dismissed him to the garden with a finality against which his pleadings to be allowed to be of use to her proved of no avail, and only when, after a half-hour, she appeared in the doorway with a pail, and approached the old well nearby, did he discover a chance to show his devotion.

"If you knew what fun I should consider it to be carrying plates and things around for you in there," said he, as he drew the water for her, "you wouldn't keep me out here. What do you imagine I came a hundred miles out of my way for—to study the possibilities of landscape gardening as applied to miniature estates like these of yours?"

"You might do much worse," she responded promptly. "I have spent not a little thought on just how much trimming to give my old shrubbery and how much to leave in a wild tangle. Will you come in now and have supper? We will take it with Granny in the front room."

Mr. Brant was hungry, after his long drive, and he eyed with satisfaction the small table by the door, set out with fine old china and linen. He consumed two juicy hot chops with keen relish, accompanied as they were by well-cooked rice. A simple salad followed, and gave way to a dish of choice peaches, upon which his hostess poured plenty of rich cream. She gave him also two cups of extremely good coffee, and he rose from the repast feeling content, though the fact that he had made a heartier meal than either of the ladies had not escaped him.

By and by he had his way, and took Charlotte out to the garden. Little Madam Chase had been put to bed at what she called "early candle-light," because such an hour best suited her.

"Well, are you going to do me the honour of telling me all about it?" Mr. Brant asked, as he settled himself upon the old bench by Charlotte's side. He scanned her closely once more in the waning light.

"What do you want me to tell you?"

"Just what I ask—all about your coming here. How you get on. What it means to you. Your hopes—your fears, if you have any. I realize, better than you do, perhaps, that this is not a small venture for you to make. I am interested—you understand how interested—to know just the situation."

His tone was that of a brother, warm and kind. She responded to it.

"I am doing as well as I could expect. Almost every day I have a sitter—sometimes two. My friends are very good; they bring me every one who will come. People seem to like the things I do—some of them."

"Almost every day you have a sitter!" he repeated. "Do you call that doing well? How long have you been here?"

"Just seven weeks. Yes, I do call that doing well. It takes time to become established, of course. Now that I have made pictures of many of the prominent people others will follow, I'm confident. You know this isn't the portrait season—too many have cameras of their own and are taking snapshots of outdoor scenes, with themselves in the foreground."

"You don't find yourself wishing you had stayed in the city, as I advised?"

"Not a bit. I want more experience first. I want to be able to do work I needn't apologize for when I really begin with a city studio."

"You are doing finished work, in my opinion."

"Not in mine."

He laughed. "There is nothing weak about your will," said he.

"I hope not. I need a strong one."

"Granted, if you mean to persist in making your own way. But I live in hope that when you have demonstrated to your own satisfaction that you are perfectly competent to hew out that way for yourself, you will be willing to let some stouter pair of arms take a turn with the axe."

His tone had meaning in it, but she turned it aside.

"Could anybody take your studio away from you? Even though you don't do it for a living, but only because you adore it, could you be induced to give it up?"

"I'm not trying to induce you to give yours up. I'll build a separate one for you right beside mine, any time you say the word, and you shall pursue your avocation in perfect freedom. All I object to is your making the thing your vocation. I know of a better one for you."

She shook her head. "We went over all this ground—over and over it—before I came away. Why do you come out here and begin it all over again? I don't want to talk about it."

"I came because I had to see for myself what sort of a place you were in. I had a notion that it wasn't good enough. It isn't. You can't be comfortable in it, through the most of the year. Neither can Madam Chase."

"We can be perfectly comfortable." She spoke quickly and decidedly. "You know absolutely that I wouldn't sacrifice what is dearest to me in the world for the sake of having my own way. The little house is primitive, but Granny can be made as snug in it as in any stone mansion."

"The thing may tumble down about your ears in the first high wind."

"It will not. Dr. Burns went over it thoroughly, and says it is much more substantial than it looks."

"Dr. Burns! May I ask who the gentleman is?"

"My neighbour across the street. He is devoted to Granny, and had as many fears as you could have before he tested the house."

"Is he married?"

"Certainly." It was impossible to help laughing a little at his tone, which was that of a jealous boy.

"Thank heaven for that! I'm suspicious of men who are devoted to your grandmother, charming old lady though she is. But, in spite of Dr. Burns's invaluable opinion, I must beg to differ with him. You can't be comfortable in that chicken-coop through the winter."

"I don't know," Charlotte said slowly, sitting up very straight in the twilight, and looking steadily in front of her, "that you have any right to care whether we are comfortable or not."

"No right to care? Not the right of an old friend? Charlotte, you wouldn't deny me that? Why, child, I saw you grow up. I was your father's trusted friend, in spite of being much younger than he. And I'm not so much older than you, after all—only fifteen years. You might at least let me play at being elder brother to you."

"I did let you play that for a long, long time. It was only when—"

She paused. He took her up.

"Only when I began to intimate that the relation wasn't fully satisfying that you began to give me the cold shoulder. You haven't even written to me since you've been here. Are you aware of that?"

She nodded. "There was nothing to write. And I've been very busy."

He drew in his breath, held it for a minute, and let it go again explosively.

"Charlotte," said he, presently, "it seems to me I've lost ground with you. I wish I knew why. You know perfectly well that I won't bother you with my suit if you won't listen to it,—at least, I won't bother you with it all the time. I don't promise to give up hope. But what I can't bear is to have you treat me as if you wouldn't have even my friendship any longer. It hurts to hear you say I have no right to care whether you live in a comfortable home or not."

She turned impulsively. "Then I take it back. You have a certain right, it's true. You have been a good friend, and I owe you much. It's because I'm foolishly sensitive about this little cottage. I can see, of course, that it looks like a poor place to a man who lives in one of the finest houses in the State of Maryland, but I can't let that influence me. If you happened to be the sort of man who loves to go off into the woods and live in a log shack for a whole hunting-season you'd understand its charm for me. I don't in the least mind washing my face in a tin basin. You do mind."

"Not when you offer it. But it's not the tin basin I object to. That is—"

"It is the tin basin. You don't like to see a woman live in such a plain way. But I tell you this, Mr. Brant: she can be just as much a woman of refinement—"

"My dear girl—"

"Yes, I lost my temper for a minute," she admitted. "I shouldn't have said that. I shouldn't offend you by implying that you don't know it. What I mean is that the luxuries you consider essential are not essential. I was brought up among them. I loved them as you do. It is good for me to do without them—I am conscious of it every day. I shall be a stronger woman and a better woman if I can learn not to care."

"But you haven't wholly learned yet." He said it with satisfaction.

"I have learned!" She flung it at him. "I don't mind living in this simple way, except when a man like you comes along and tries, deliberately tries, to make me conscious of it."

He leaned toward her with a sudden, passionate gesture. "Charlotte, forgive me! It is because I long so to take you away from it, to give you the sort of home you have known in the old days. It fits you so well—that sort of home. You were a princess in the old home; you would be a queen in a new one."

"Oh, don't!"

"All right, I won't."

There was silence between them for some time after this. Brant sat with his hands clenched and resting upon his knees, his head bent a little. Charlotte had turned and laid one bended arm upon the high back of the old bench—her head rested against it. She was the first to speak, in the light tone with which her sex is accustomed to let a situation down from the heights of strong emotion to a more normal level.

"What do you do with a sitter who won't let you bring out her best points, but insists on making herself into the stiffest sort of a lay figure?"

"Chloroform her and relax the tension." Brant's tone was grim. Then, suddenly, he looked up. "Will you let me go in and make a flashlight of you by a new method I've worked out? I promise you you'll find it a trick worth knowing."

"I shall be delighted. You've taught me half I know, and I'm more grateful than I seem."

"I hope that's true," he said, still in the grim tone, as they went up the garden path toward the house.