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Page 2
"That's it. Of course, if he happened to be lying on my lawn, all mangled
up and calling for me to save his life, I'd welcome the sight of him,
poor chap. But he won't be interesting, like that. He'll be a victim of
chronic dyspepsia. Or worse--she'll be a woman who can't sleep without a
dope. I have to get used to that kind by degrees, after a vacation; I
don't warm up to 'em, on sight."
"Yet they're very miserable, some of those patients who are quite able to
walk to your office, and very grateful to you if you relieve them, aren't
they?"
Red Pepper chuckled. "I can foresee," he said, "that you're going to take
the side of the unhappy patient, from the start--worse luck for me! Yes,
they're grateful if I can relieve them, but the trouble is I can't
relieve them--not the particular class I have in mind. They won't do as I
order. And as long as I can't get them comfortably down in bed, where the
nurse and I have the upper hand, they'll continue to carry out half of my
directions--the half they approve, and neglect the other half--the really
important half, and then come round and tell me I haven't helped them
any--and why not? Oh, well--far be it from me to complain of the routine
work, much as I prefer the sort which calls for all the skill and
resource I happen to possess. And the dull part is going to take on a new
interest, now, when I can escape from the office into my wife's quarters,
between times, where no patient can follow me."
She smiled, watching a big cloud, low on the horizon before them, break
into fragments and dissolve into blue sky and sunshine. "I hope," said
she, "to be able to make those quarters attractive. You remember I
haven't seen them yet--not even the bare rooms."
"That's bothered me a good deal, in spite of the assurance you gave me,
when we discussed it by letter. If I hadn't been so horribly busy, and
had had the faintest notion of what to do with them--or if you had wanted
Martha and Winifred to put them in shape for you--"
"But I didn't! It's going to be such fun to work it out, you and I
together."
He shook his head. "Don't count on me, dear. I probably shan't
have time to do more than take you in to town and drop you in the
shopping district. You'll have to do it all. You've married a doctor,
Ellen--that's the whole story. And it's the knowledge of that fact
that makes me realize that I may as well leave my bride at the
fifty-mile-stone. It'll take my wife that fifty miles to prepare herself
for the thing that's going to strike her the minute we are home. And, by
the fates, I believe that's the stone, ahead there, at the curve of the
road!"
He brought the Green Imp's pace down until it was moving very slowly
toward the mile-stone. Then he turned and looked steadily down into the
face beside him. "Shall you be sorry to get there?" he asked.
"No."
"Why?"
"Because I don't want to be a bride. They are useless persons. And I
don't care much for bridegrooms, either. I prefer a busy husband. And
I shall enjoy getting those rooms in order, quite by myself. To tell the
truth I'm not at all sure I don't prefer to do them alone. I've had one
enlightening experience, shopping with you, you know."
"So you have." He laughed at the remembrance. "Yet I thought I was pretty
meek, that day. Well, so you don't mind getting to the mile-stone?"
"Not a bit."
They were beside it now. Burns stopped the car. It was a country road,
although it was the main highway between two large cities, and on this
April afternoon it was deserted by motorists. Only in the distance could
be discerned anything in the nature of a vehicle, and that was headed the
other way.
"I suppose I'm a sentimental chap," he observed. "But in one way I've
been rather dreading getting home, for your sake. It's come over me,
since we turned our faces this way, that not a thing has been done to
make my shabby old place fit for you--except to clean it thoroughly.
Cynthia's seen to that. Does it seem as if I hadn't cared to give you
a fit welcome home?"
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