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?”
