EXPERT DIAGNOSIS
"What would you give for a drive with me this morning?" Burns surveyed
his patient, now dressed and downstairs upon a pillared rear porch,
wistfulness in his eyes but determination on his lips.
"Do you mean it?"
"Yes. We may as well try what that back will stand. Most of the drive
will be sitting still in front of houses, anyhow, and in your plaster
jacket you're pretty safe from injury."
"Thank heaven!" murmured Jordan King fervently.
Two minutes later he was beside Burns in the Doctor's car, staring
eagerly ahead, lifting his hat now and then as some one gave him
interested greeting from passing motor. More than once Burns was obliged
to bring his car to a short standstill, so that some delighted friend
might grasp King's hand and tell him how good it seemed to see him out.
With one and all the young man was very blithe, though he let them do
most of the talking. They all told him heartily that he was looking
wonderfully well, while they ignored with the understanding of the
intelligent certain signs which spoke of physical and mental strain.
"Your friends," Burns remarked as they went on after one particularly
pleasant encounter, "seem to belong to the class who possess brains. I
wish it were a larger class. Every day I find some patient suffering
from depression caused by fool comments from some well-meaning
acquaintance."
"I've had a few of those, too," King acknowledged.
"I'll wager you have. Well, among a certain class of people there seems
to be an idea that you can't show real sympathy without telling the
victim that he's looking very ill, and that you have known several such
cases which didn't recover. I have one little woman on my list who would
have been well long ago if she hadn't had so many loving friends to
impress her with the idea that her case was desperate. I talk Dutch to
such people now and then, when I get the chance, but it doesn't do much
good. Sometimes I get so thundering mad I can't stand it, and then I rip
out something that makes me a lasting enemy."
"You get some comfort out of the explosion, anyhow," King commented,
with a glance at the strong profile beside him. "Besides, you may do
more good than you know. Anybody who had had a good dressing down from
you once wouldn't be likely to forget it in a hurry."
Burns laughed at this, as they stopped in front of a house. King had a
half-hour wait while his friend was inside. The car stood in heavy
shade, and he was very comfortable. He took a letter from his pocket as
he sat, a letter which looked as if it had been many times unfolded, and
read it once more, his face very sober as his eyes followed the familiar
lines:
DEAR MR. KING:
I was very, very sorry to go away without seeing you to say
good-bye after our interesting correspondence. Mrs. Burns and
I had such a pleasant visit with your mother, in your absence,
that we felt rewarded for our call, and it was good to know
that you could be out, yet of course we were very
disappointed. I do hope that all will go well with you, and
that very rapidly, for I can guess how eager you are to be at
work.
Of course once I am off on my travels I shall have no time for
letters. No, that isn't quite frank, is it? Well, I will be
truthful and say honestly that I am sure it is not best that I
should keep on writing. I am glad if the letters have, as you
say, helped you through the worst of the siege; they surely
have helped me. But now--our ways part. Sometime I may give
you a hail from somewhere--when I am lonely and longing to
know how you get on. And sometime I may be back at my old
home. But wherever I am I shall never forget you, Jordan King,
for you have put something into my life which was not there
before and I am the better for it. As for you--your life will
not be one whit the less big and efficient for this trying
experience; it will be bigger, I think, and finer. I am glad,
glad I have known you.
ANNE LINTON.
For the hundredth time King felt his heart sink as he thought of that
prevented last interview. His mother had prevented it. It was perfectly
true that he was out, and away from home--out in a wheeled chair, which
had been pushed by Franz through a gap in the hedge between the Kings'
lawn and the Wentworths' next door. Just on the other side of that hedge
the chair had paused, where Sally Wentworth, his friend of long
standing, was serving tea to a little group of young people, all
intimates and all delighted to have the invalid once more in their
midst. Under the group of great copper beeches which made of that corner
of the Wentworth lawn a summer drawing room, King had sat in his chair
drinking tea and listening to gay chatter--and wondering why he had not
been able to get Anne Linton on the telephone so far that day. And at
that very time, so he now bitterly reflected, she and Mrs. Burns had
made their call upon him, only to be told by Mrs. King that he was
"out."
His mother was unquestionably a lady, and she had told the truth; he
could not conceive of her doing otherwise. He knew that she undoubtedly,
quite as Anne had said, had made the call a pleasant one. But she had
known that he was within a stone's throw of the house, and that he would
be bitterly disappointed not to be summoned. She had not mentioned to
him the fact of the call at all until next day--when Anne Linton had
been gone a full two hours upon her train. Then, when he had called up
Mrs. Burns, in a fever of haste to learn what had happened and what
there might yet be a chance of happening, he had discovered that Ellen
herself had tried three times to get him, upon the telephone, and had at
last realized--though this she did not say--that it was not intended
that she should.
King understood his mother perfectly. She would scorn directly to
deceive him, yet to intrigue quietly but effectively against him in such
a case as this she would consider only her duty. She had seen clearly
his interest in the stranger, unintroduced and unvouched for, taken in
by kind people in an emergency, and though showing unquestionable marks
of breeding, none the less a stranger. She had feared for him, in his
present vulnerable condition; and she had done her part in preventing
that final parting which might have contained elements of danger. That
was all there was to it.
For the present King was helpless, and there could be no possible use in
reproaching his mother for her action--or lack of action. Once let him
get up on his feet, his own master once more--then it would be of use to
talk. And talk he would some day. Also he would act. Meanwhile--
Red Pepper Burns came out of the house and scrutinized his friend and
patient closely as he approached. "Want to go on, or shall I take you
home?" he inquired.
"Take me on--anywhere--everywhere! Something inside will break loose if
you don't." King spoke with a smothered note of irritation new to him in
Burns's experience.
"You've about reached the limit, have you?" The question was
straightforward, matter-of-fact in tone, but King knew the sympathy
behind it.
"I rather have," the young man admitted. "I'm ashamed to own it."
"You needn't be. It's a wonder you haven't reached it sooner; I should
have. Well, if you stand this drive pretty well to-day you ought to come
on fast. With that back, you may be thankful you're getting off as
easily as you are."
"I am thankful--everlastingly thankful. It's just--"
"I know. Blow off some of that steam; it won't hurt you. Here we are on
the straight road. I'll open up and give you a taste of what poor Henley
felt the first time his crippled body and his big, uncrippled spirit
tasted the delight of 'Speed.' Remember?"
"Indeed I do. Oh, I'm not complaining. You understand that, Red?"
"Of course I understand--absolutely. And I understand that you need just
what I say--to blow off a lot of steam. Hurt you or not, I'm going to
let loose for a couple of miles and blow it off for you."
In silence, broken only by the low song of the motor as it voiced its
joy in the widening license to show its power, the two men took the wind
in their faces as the car shot down the road, at the moment a clear
highway for them. King had snatched off his hat, and his dark hair blew
wildly about his forehead, while his eyes watched the way as intently as
if he had been driving himself, though his body hardly tensed, so
complete was his confidence in the steady hands on the wheel. Faster and
faster flew the car, until the speed indicator touched a mark seldom
passed by King himself at his most reckless moments. His lips, set at
first, broke into a smile as the pointing needle circled the dial, and
his eyes, if any could have seen them, would have told the relief there
was for him in escape by flight, though only temporary, from the
grinding pull of monotony and disablement.
At the turn ahead appeared obstruction, and Burns was obliged to begin
slowing down. When the car was again at its ordinary by no means slow
pace, King spoke:
"Bless you for a mind reader! That was bully, and blew away a lot of
distemper. If you'll just do it again going back I'll submit to the
afternoon of a clam in a bed of mud."
"Good. We'll beat that record going back, if we break the speedometer.
Racing with time isn't supposed to be the game for a convalescent, but
I'm inclined to think it's the dose you need, just the same. I expect,
Jord, that the first time you pull on a pair of rubber boots and go to
climbing around a big concrete dam somewhere your heart will break for
joy."
"My heart will stand anything, so that it's action."
"Will it? I thought it might be a bit damaged. It's had a good deal of
reaction to stand lately, I'm afraid."
There was silence for a minute, then King spoke:
"Red, you're a wizard."
"Not much of a one. It doesn't take extraordinary powers of penetration
to guess that a flame applied to a bundle of kindling will cause a fire.
And when you keep piling on the fuel something's likely to get burned."
"Did I pile on the fuel?"
"You sure did. If there had been gunpowder under the kindling you could
have expected an explosion--and a wreck."
"There's no wreck."
"No? I thought there might be--somewhere."
King spoke quickly. "Do you think I carried it too far?"
"I think you carried it some distance--for an invalid's diversion."
The young man flushed hotly. "I was genuinely interested and I saw no
harm. If there's any harm done it's to myself, and I can stand that. I'm
not conceited enough to imagine that a broken-backed cripple could make
any lasting impression."
Burns turned and surveyed his companion with some amusement. "Do you
consider that a description of yourself?"
"I certainly do." Jordan King's strong young jaw took on a grim
expression.
"Know this then"--Burns spoke deliberately--"there's not a sane girl who
liked you well enough before your accident to marry you who wouldn't
marry you now."
"That's absurd. Women want men, not cripples."
"You're no cripple. Stop using that term."
"What else? A man condemned to wear a plaster jacket for at least a
year." King evidently did his best not to speak bitterly.
"Bosh! Suppose the same thing happened to me. Would you look on me
askance for the rest of my days, no matter what man's job I kept on
tackling? Besides, the plaster jacket's only a precaution. You wouldn't
disintegrate without it."
King looked at Red Pepper Burns and smiled in spite of himself. "I'm
glad to hear that, I'm sure. As for looking at you askance--you are you,
R.P. Burns."
"Apply the same logic to yourself. You are you, and will continue to be
you, plus some assets you haven't had occasion to acquire before in the
way of dogged endurance, control of mind, and such-like qualities, bred
of need for them. You will be more to us all than you ever were, and
that's saying something. And the back's going to be a perfectly good
back; give it time. As for--if you don't mind my saying it--that
invalid's diversion, I don't suppose it's hurt you any. What I'm
concerned for is the hurt it may have done somebody else. I don't need
to tell you that it wasn't possible for Ellen and me to have that little
girl on our hearts all that time and not get mightily interested in her.
She's the real thing, too, we're convinced, and we care a good deal what
happens to her next."
Jordan King drew a deep breath. "So do I."
Burns gave him a quick look. "That's good. But you let her go away
without making sure of keeping any hold on her. You don't know where she
is now."
King shot him a return look. "That wasn't my fault. That was hard luck."
"I don't think much of luck. Get around it."
"I'll do my best, I promise you. But I wish you'd tell me--"
"Yes?"
"--why you should think I had done her any harm. Heaven knows I wouldn't
do that for my right arm!"
"She didn't make a sign--not one--of any injury, I assure you. She's a
gallant little person, if ever there was one--and a thoroughbred, though
she may be as poor as a church mouse. No, I should never have guessed
it. She went away with all sails set and the flags flying. All I know is
what my wife says."
"Please tell me."
"I'm not sure it will be good for you." Burns smiled as he drew up
beside a house. "However--if you will have it--she says Miss Anne Linton
took away with her every one of your numerous letters, notes, and even
calling cards which had been sent with flowers. She also took a halftone
snapshot of you out at the Coldtown dam, cut from a newspaper,
published the Sunday after your accident. The sun was in your eyes and
you were scowling like a fiend; it was the worst picture of you
conceivable."
"Girls do those things, I suppose," murmured King with a rising colour.
"Granted. And now and then one does it for a purpose which we won't
consider. But a girl of the type we feel sure Miss Linton to be
carefully destroys all such things from men she doesn't care
for--particularly if she has started on a trip and is travelling light.
Of course she may have fooled us all and be the cleverest little
adventuress ever heard of. But I'd stake a good deal on Ellen's
judgment. Women don't fool women much, you know, whatever they do with
men."
He disappeared into a small brown house, and King was left once more
with his own thoughts. When Burns came out they drove on again with
little attempt at conversation, for Burns's calls were not far apart.
King presently began to find himself growing weary, and sat very quietly
in his seat during the Doctor's absences, experiencing, as he had done
many times of late, a sense of intense contempt for himself because of
his own physical weakness. In all his sturdy life he had never known
what it was to feel not up to doing whatever there might be to be done.
Fatigue he had known, the healthy and not unpleasant fatigue which
follows vigorous and prolonged labour, but never weakness or pain,
either of body or of mind. Now he was suffering both.
"Had about enough?" Burns inquired as he returned to the car for the
eighth time. "Shall I take you home?"
"I'm all right."
Burns gave him a sharp glance. "To be sure you are. But we'll go home
nevertheless. The rest of my work is at the hospital anyhow."
As they were approaching the long stretch of straight road to which King
had looked forward an hour ago, but which he was disgusted to find
himself actually rather dreading now, a great closed car of luxurious
type, and bearing upon its top considerable travelling luggage, slowed
down as it neared, and a liveried chauffeur held up a detaining hand.
Burns stopped to answer a series of questions as to the best route
toward a neighbouring city. There were matters of road mending and
detours to be made plain to the inquirers, so the detention occupied a
full five minutes, during which the chauffeur got down and came to
Burns's side with a road map, with which the two wrestled after the
fashion usually made necessary by such aids to travel.
During this period Jordan King underwent a disturbing experience.
Looking up with his usual keen glance, one trained to observe whatever
might be before it, he took in at a sweep the nature of the party in the
big car. That it was a rich man's car, and that its occupants were those
who naturally belonged in it, there was no question. From the owner
himself, an aristocrat who looked the part, as not all aristocrats do,
to those who were presumably his wife, his son, and daughters, all were
of the same type. Simply dressed as if for a long journey, they yet
diffused that aroma of luxury which cannot be concealed.
The presumable son, a tall, hawk-nosed young man who sat beside the
chauffeur, turned to speak to those inside, and King's glance followed
his. He thus caught sight of a profile next the open window and close by
him. He stared at it, his heart suddenly standing still. Who was this
girl with the bronze-red hair, the perfect outline of nose and mouth and
chin, the sea-shell colouring? Even as he stared she turned her head,
and her eyes looked straight into his.
He had seen Miss Anne Linton only twice, and on the two occasions she
had seemed to him like two entirely different girls. But this girl--was
she not that one who had come to visit him in his room at the hospital,
full of returning health and therefore of waxing beauty and vigour?
For one instant he was sure it was she, no matter how strange it was
that she should be here, in this rich man's car--unless--But he had no
time to think it out before he was overwhelmed by the indubitable
evidence that, whoever this girl was, she did not know him. Her
eyes--apparently the same wonderful eyes which he could now never
forget--looked into his without a sign of recognition, and her
colour--the colour of radiantly blooming youth--did not change
perceptibly under his gaze. And after that one glance, in which she
seemed to survey him closely, after the manner of girls, as if he were
an interesting specimen, her eyes travelled to Red Pepper Burns and
rested lightly on him, as if he, too, were a person of but passing
significance to the motor traveller looking for diversion after many
dusty miles of more or less monotonous sights.
King continued to gaze at her with a steadiness somewhat indefensible
except as one considers that all motorists, meeting on the highway, are
accustomed to take note of one another as comrades of the road. He was
not conscious that the other young people in the car also regarded him
with eyes of interest, and if he had he would not have realized just
why. His handsome, alert face, its outlines slightly sharpened by his
late experiences, his well-dressed, stalwart figure, carried no hint of
the odious plaster jacket which to his own thinking put him outside the
pale of interest for any one.
But it could not be Anne Linton; of course it could not! What should a
poor little book agent be doing here in a rich man's car--unless she
were in his employ? And somehow the fact that this girl was not in any
man's employ was established by the manner in which the young man on the
front seat spoke to her, as he now did, plainly heard by King. Though
all he said was some laughing, more or less witty thing about this being
the nineteenth time, by actual count since breakfast, that a question of
roads and routes had arisen, he spoke as to an equal in social status,
and also--this was plainer yet--as to one on whom he had a more than
ordinary claim. And King listened for her answer--surely he would know
her voice if she spoke? One may distrust the evidence of one's eyes when
it comes to a matter of identity, but one's ears are not to be deceived.
But King's ears, stretched though they might be, metaphorically
speaking, like those of a mule, to catch the sound of that voice, caught
nothing. She replied to the young man on the front seat only by a nod
and a smile. Then, as the chauffeur began to fold up his road map,
thanking Burns for his careful directions, and both cars were on the
point of starting, the object of King's heart-arresting scrutiny looked
at him once again. Her straight gaze, out of such eyes as he had never
seen but on those two occasions, met his without flinching--a long,
steady, level look, which lasted until, under Burns's impatient hand,
the smaller car got under motion and began to move. Even then, though
she had to turn her head a little, she let him hold her gaze--as, of
course, he was nothing loath to do, being intensely and increasingly
stirred by the encounter with its baffling hint of mystery. Indeed, she
let him hold that gaze until it was not possible for her longer to
maintain her share of the exchange without twisting about in the car. As
for King, he did not scruple to twist, as far as his back would let him,
until he had lost those eyes from his view.