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Page 101
"I can't tell you," she said, "how happy it makes me to see your
happiness. John Leaver is so exactly the man, out of all the world, who
is the husband for you. From all I know of you both, it seems to me
I never saw a pair more perfectly mated."
"I'm glad it looks so from the outside," breathed Charlotte, softly. She
too had watched the departing pair; waving her hand as her husband, under
the electric light at the entrance, had turned to lift his hat and signal
farewell. She still stood by the window, through which the soft air of
the May night touched her warm cheek and stirred the lace about her white
shoulders. "From the inside--O Len,--I can't tell you how it looks! I
didn't know there was such glory in the world!"
* * * * *
"What do you think this fellow has done?" cried Red Pepper Burns,
returning with his host at midnight. He towered in the doorway, looking
in at his wife and Charlotte. From over his shoulder Leaver looked in
also, smiling. "He's arranged for me to operate on one of his most
critical cases to-morrow morning at his clinic. The country surgeon! Did
you ever hear of such effrontery? I may be ridden out of town on a rail
by to-morrow noon!"
"Hear the man! He looks like a country surgeon, doesn't he?" challenged
Leaver, advancing. "London-made clothes, Bond-street neckwear, scarfpin
from Rome, general air of confidence and calm. I assure you I was
nowhere, when the family of my patient saw the lately arrived specialist
from Berlin."
"It's not on that patient I'm to do violence," Burns explained, at
Ellen's look of astonishment. "He's just mixing things up on purpose.
It's a charity case for mine--but none the less honour, on that account.
I have a chance to try out a certain new method, adapted from one I saw
used for the first time abroad. If it doesn't work I'll--drop several
pegs in my own estimation, and in self-confidence."
"It will work," said Leaver, "in your hands. The country surgeon is going
to surprise one or two of my colleagues to-morrow."
The morrow came. Charlotte and Ellen drove with the two men to the
hospital, and watched them disappear within its bare but kindly walls.
"How they can do it!" observed Charlotte, as the car went on. "I'm
proud of them that they can, but the eagerness with which they approach
such work, the quiet and coolness, and the way they bear the suspense
afterward when the result is still doubtful,--oh, isn't it a wonderful
profession?"
At noon they returned in the car to the hospital. It was some time before
Leaver and Burns emerged, but when they did it was easy for the two who
awaited them to infer that all had gone well.
"It's a pity to bring this suggestive odour out to you untainted ones,"
said Burns, as he took his place opposite Charlotte, "but it can't be
helped. And as we bring also the news that Jack Leaver has brought down
the hospital roof with applause this morning, you won't mind."
"What did he do?" Charlotte asked, eagerly.
Burns briefly described the case--without describing it at all--after the
manner of the profession when enlightening the laity. He brought out
clearly, however, the fact that Leaver had attacked with great skill and
success several exceedingly difficult problems, and that his fellow
surgeons had been generous enough to concede to him all the honour which
was his due.
"And now--what about your case?" Charlotte asked, realizing suddenly what
the morning's experience was to have been to Burns himself.
"Died on the table," said Burns, with entire coolness. His face had
sobered at the question, but his expression was by no means crestfallen.
"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Charlotte began, earnestly.
But her husband interrupted her. "No condolences are due, dear. He gave a
dying man the most merciful sort of euthanasia, and at the same time
demonstrated a new method as daring as it was triumphant. With a case
taken a month earlier it would have saved a life. The demonstration is a
contribution to science. If he received no applause it was because we
don't applaud in the presence of death, but there was not a man there
who didn't realize that in certain lines the country surgeon could give
them a long handicap and still win."
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