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Page 71
"She was as good as a mother to you, dear."
"Yes, I know, but she wasn't, and it hurts me worse now she is gone than
it would have done when she was alive. I don't seem to have anything."
"You have me."
Then Clemency ran to him, and he held her on his knee and comforted her,
then tore himself away to make his morning round of calls. Clemency
followed him to the door, and kissed her hand to him as he drove away.
James had good reason to remember it, for it was the last loving
salutation from her for many a day.
When he returned at noon the girl's manner was unaccountably changed
toward him. She only spoke to him directly when addressed, and then in
monosyllables. She never looked at him. She sat at the table at luncheon
and poured the chocolate, and there was almost absolute silence. Emma
waited jerkily as usual. James fancied once, when he met her eyes, that
there was an expression of covert triumph on her face. Emma had never
liked him. He had been conscious of the fact, but it had not disturbed
him. He had no more thought of this middle-aged, harsh-featured New
Jersey farmer's daughter than he had of one of the dining-chairs. Gordon
sat humped upon himself, as he sat nowadays, a marked stoop of age was
becoming visible in his broad shoulders, and he ate perfunctorily
without a word. James, after a number of futile attempts to talk to
Clemency, subsided himself into bewildered silence, and ate with very
little appetite. There were chops and potatoes and peas, and apple-pie,
for luncheon. When it came to the pie Emma served Clemency and Doctor
Gordon, and deliberately omitted James. Nobody seemed to notice it,
although James felt sure that the omission was intentional. He felt
himself inwardly amused at the antagonism which could take such a form,
and went without his pie uncomplainingly, while Gordon and Clemency ate
theirs. The dog at this juncture came slinking into the room and close
to James, who gave him a lump of sugar from the bowl which happened to
stand near him. At once Emma took the bowl and moved it to another part
of the table out of his reach. James felt a strong inclination to laugh.
The dog sat up and begged for more sugar, and James, when they all left
the table, coolly took a handful of sugar from the bowl and carried it
into the office, the dog leaping at his side. Emma slammed the
dining-room door behind him. Clemency, without a look at him,
immediately ran upstairs to her own room. Gordon and James sat down in
the office as usual for a smoke until James should start upon his
afternoon rounds. Gordon asked him a few questions about the patients
whom he had seen that morning, but in a listless, abstracted fashion,
then he spoke of those whom James would see that afternoon. "You had
better take the team," he said.
"Clemency is going with me," James said.
Gordon looked at him with faint surprise. "I think you must be
mistaken," he said. "Clemency came to me just before luncheon and asked
if I had any objections to her spending a few days with Annie Lipton. I
told her we could get on perfectly well without her, and Aaron is going
to drive her over. She will have to take a suit-case. I knew you had to
go in another direction, and could not take her. I thought the change
would do her good. Didn't she say anything to you about it?"
"I think it will do her good. She needs a little change," James replied
evasively. As he spoke Aaron came out of the stable leading the bay mare
harnessed to a buggy.
"She is going right away," said Gordon, looking a little puzzled. He had
hardly finished speaking before Clemency's voice was heard in the hall.
It rang rather hard, but quite clearly. "Good-by," she called out.
"Good-by," responded Gordon and James together. Gordon looked at James,
astonished that he did not go out to assist Clemency into the buggy, and
bid her good-by. He seemed about to question him, then he took another
puff at his pipe, and his face settled into its wonted expression of
gloomy retrospection. Boy's and girl's love affairs seemed as motes in a
beam of sunlight to him at this juncture.
James started to go, the horses were stamping uneasily in the drive, and
he had a long round of calls to make that afternoon.
Gordon removed his pipe. "I am putting a good deal on you, Elliot," he
said with a kind of hard sadness.
"That's all right," James replied cheerfully, "I am strong. I can stand
it if the patients can. I fancied old Mrs. Steen was rather disgusted to
see me this morning. I heard her say something about sendin' a boy to
her daughter, and when I went into the bedroom, she glared at me, and
said, 'You?'" James laughed.
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