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Page 100
Upstairs in the rooms of old-time elegance and comfort to which Charlotte
assigned them, Burns demanded to know how such quarters looked to his
wife.
"You could put our whole house into that great living-room of theirs," he
asserted. "As for these two rooms, they would take in our whole upper
story. Don't you suppose stopping here will make you feel cramped at
home?"
Ellen, arranging her hair before a low dressing-table of priceless old
mahogany, shook her head at him in the mirror.
"Not a bit," she denied.
"You used to live in a home like this one."
"Not nearly so fine. Dr. Leaver is a rich man by inheritance, entirely
apart from his practice. Between the two he must have a very large yearly
income. My family was not a rich one, only--"
"Only old and distinguished. Leaver has both--family and money. Not to
mention power. Your friend Charlotte ought to be a happy woman."
"She surely ought, and is. But not happier than the woman you see before
you."
Burns came close, lifted a strand of silky dark hair and drew it through
his fingers. Then he stooped and put it to his lips.
"You stand by the country doctor, do you?" he murmured.
"Always and forever, dear."
"And yet you are a city woman, born and bred."
"What has that to do with it? I should rather drive in the Green Imp over
the country hills with you than ride in the most superb limousine in
Baltimore--with any one else."
He gathered her close in his arms for a minute. "Begone, dull envy,"
said he. "From this moment I'll rejoice with Jack over every worldly
possession and envy him nothing, not even the power to give his wife
everything the world counts riches."
They went down to such a dinner as such homes are famous for. The
candle-light from the fine old family candelabra fell upon four faces
brilliant with the mature youthfulness which marks the years about the
early thirties, the richest years of all yet lived. The splendid colour
of the crimson roses in the centre of the table was not richer in its
bloom than that in Charlotte's cheeks, nor the sparkle of the lights more
attractive than that in Ellen's dark eyes. As for the two men--all the
possible achievement of forceful manhood seemed written in their faces,
so different in feature and colouring, so alike in the look of dominant
purpose and the power born of will and untiring labour.
During dinner a telephone call summoned Leaver to a consultation.
Immediately at its close he went away, carrying Burns with him.
"You can't take me to a consultation, Jack," Burns had objected, with,
however, a betraying light of eagerness in his eye. He had been four
months away from work--he was hungry for it as a starving man for food.
"Can't I?" Leaver answered, coolly. "Come along and see. It's a chance
to give the patient the opinion of an eminent specialist just back from
Berlin."
"I'm no specialist."
"Aren't you? I think you are. Specialist in human nature, which, if the
reports of this case are true, is the particular sort of diagnosis called
for. Trust me, Red, and--put on your gloves!"
Burns had grinned over this suggestion. He hated gloves and seldom
wore them, but out of consideration for his friend--and Baltimore--he
extracted a pair of irreproachable ones, fresh from Berlin, and donned
them, with only a derisive word for the uselessness of externals as
practised by city professionals.
Left alone with Charlotte, in a pleasant corner of a stately library, by
an open window through which she had watched the departure of the two men
in the landau, Ellen turned to her.
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