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Page 22
She smiled and nodded her thanks, with a blithe word of parting,--so
completely can her sex disguise their feelings. She was conscious at the
moment, without in the least being able to guess at the cause of the
friction between the two men, of an intense antipathy to Dr. James Van
Horn. And at the same moment she longed to be able to make her husband
look as cool and unconcerned as the other man was looking, as he drove
away with a backward nod--which Red Pepper did not return!
It was not the time to speak,--she knew that well enough. Besides, though
she was not the subject of his resentment, she did not care to incur any
more of the results of it than could be helped. She let Burns drop her at
a corner near the shopping district without asking him to take her to the
precise place she meant to visit first, and left him without making any
request that he return for her,--a courtesy he was usually eager to
insist upon, even though it took him out of his way.
At night, when he returned, she met him with the hope that he would be
able to spend the evening with her,--a thing which had not happened for
a week. Her arms were about his neck as she put the question, and he
looked down into her face with again a slight softening of his austere
expression. She had seen at the first glance that he was not only still
unhappy, he was suffering profound fatigue.
"No, I've got to go back to that infernal case." It was the first time he
had disclosed even a hint as to what was the matter.
"The one where I stopped with you this morning?"
"Yes. Each time I go I vow I'll not go again. To-night, if I find things
as they were two hours ago, I'll discharge myself, and that will end it."
"Red, you're just as tired and worn as you can be. Come in to the big
couch, and let me make you comfortable, until dinner. You'll eat the
better for it--and you need it."
He yielded, reluctantly,--he who was always so willing to submit to her
ministrations. But he threw himself upon the couch with a long sigh, and
let her arrange the pillows under his head. She sat down beside him.
"Can't you tell me something about it, dear?" she suggested. "Nothing I
ought not to know, of course, but the thing which makes you so miserable.
It can't be because the case is going wrong,--that wouldn't affect you
just as this is doing."
"You've seen it, I suppose. I thought I'd kept in, before you." Burns
shut his eyes, his brows frowning.
She could have smiled, but did not. "You have--only of course I have seen
that something was wearing you--keeping you on a tension. You've not been
quite yourself for several days."
"I am myself. I'm the real fellow--only you haven't known him before. The
other is just--the devil disguised in a goodly garment, one that doesn't
belong to him."
"Oh, no!"
"No question of it. I'm so swearing mad this minute I could kill
somebody,--in other words, that foul fiend of a James Van
Horn--smooth-tongued hypocrite that he is!"
"Has he injured you?"
"Injured me? Knifed me in the back, every chance he got. Always has--but
he never had such a chance as he has now. And plays the part of an angel
of light in that house--fools them all. I'm the ill-tempered incompetent,
he's the forbearing wise man. The case is mine, but he's played the game
till they all have more confidence in him than they have in me. And he's
got all the cards in his hand!"
He flung himself off the couch, and began to pace the room. Speech, once
unloosed, flowed freely enough now,--he could not keep it back.
"The patient is a man of prominence--the matter of his recovery is a
great necessity. If he were able to bear it he ought to be operated upon;
but there isn't one chance in a hundred he'd survive an operation at
present. There's at least one chance in ten he'll get well without one.
I'm usually keen enough to operate, but for once I don't dare risk it.
Van Horn advises operation--unreservedly. And the deuce of it is that
with every hour that goes by he lets the family understand that he
considers the patient's chances for relief by operation are lessening.
He's fixing it so that however things come out he's safe, and however
things come out I'm in the hole."
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