The seventh Jones was again too old; the eighth was a pale
hobbledehoy; the ninth was a loathsome quack; the tenth had died
that morning; the eleventh was busy; the twelfth was a veterinary
surgeon; the thirteenth was an intern living at home with his
widowed sister. Colorado? No, the widowed sister was positive
he had never been there. The fourteenth was a handsome fellow of
about thirty-five. He looked poor and threadbare, and I had a
glimpse of a shabby bed behind a screen. Patients obviously did
not often come his way, and his joy at seeing me was pitiful. I
had meant to try a bluff and get in my Colorado question this
time free of charge; but I hadn't the heart to do it. Slight
pains in the head seemed a safe complaint.
After a few questions he said he would have to make a thorough
physical examination.
"No clothes off!" I protested.
"It's essential," he said, and went on with something about the
radio-activity of the brain, and the vasomotor centers. The word
motor made me feel like a sick automobile. I begged to keep my
clothes on; I insisted; I promised to come tomorrow; but it
wasn't any good, and in a few minutes he was hitting me harder
than either of the two before. Maybe I was more tender! He
electrocuted me extra from a switchboard, ran red-hot needles
into my legs, and finally, after banging me around the room, said
I was the strongest and wellest man who had ever entered his
office.
"There's a lot of make-believe in medicine," he said; "but I'm
one of those poor devils who can't help telling a patient the
truth. There's nothing whatever the matter with you, Mr.
Westoby, except that your skin has a slightly abrased look, and I
seem to notice an abnormal sensitiveness to touch"
"Were you ever in Colorado, Doctor?" I asked while he was good
enough to help me into my shirt.
"Oh, yes, I know Colorado well!"
My heart beat high.
"Some friends of mine were out there three years ago," I said.
"Wouldn't it be strange if by any chance the Van Coorts--"
"Oh, I left Denver when I was fifteen."
Five dollars!
The fifteenth Jones was a doctor of divinity; the sixteenth was a
tapeworm specialist; the seventeenth was too old, the eighteenth
was too old, the nineteenth was too old--a trio of disappointing
patriarchs. The twentieth painted out black eyes; the twenty-first
was a Russian who could scarcely speak any English. He said he
had changed his name from Karaforvochristophervitch to
something more suited to American pronunciation. He seemed to
think that Jones gave him a better chance. I sincerely hope it
did. He told me that all the rest of the Jones family was in
Siberia, but that he was going to bomb them out! The twenty-second
was a negro. The twenty-third--! He was a tall, youngish man,
narrow-shouldered, rather commonplace-looking, with beautiful
blue eyes, and a timid, winning, deprecatory manner. I told him
I was suffering from insomnia. After raking over my grandfathers
again and bringing the family history down by stages to the very
moment I was shown into his office he said he should have to
ask me to undergo a thorough physical--! But I was tired of being
slapped and punched and breathed on and prodded, and was
bold enough to refuse point-blank. I'd rather have the insomnia!
We worked up quite a fuss about it, for there was something
tenacious in the fellow, for all his mild, kind, gentle ways; and
I had all I could do to get off by pleading press of business.
But I wasn't to escape scot-free. Medical science had to get
even somehow. He compromised by stinging my eye out with
belladonna. Have you ever had belladonna squirted in your eye?
Well, don't!
He was sitting at the table, writing out some cabalistic wiggles
that stood for bromide of potassium, when I remarked casually
that it was strange how well I could always sleep in Colorado.
He laid down the pen with a sigh.
"A wonderful state--Colorado," I observed.
"To me it's the land of memories," he said. "Sad, beautiful,
irrevocable memories--try tea for breakfast--do you read
Browning? Then you will remember that line: 'Oh, if I--' And I
insist on your giving up that cocktail before dinner."
"Some very dear friends of mine were once in Colorado," I said.
"Morristown people--the Van Coorts."
"The Van Coorts!"
Doctor Jones sprang from his chair, his thin, handsome face
flushing with excitement.
"Do you mean to say that you know Eleanor Van Coort?" he gasped.
"All my life."
He dropped back into the chair again and mumbled something about
cigars. I was only to have blank a day. In his perturbation I
believe he limited me to a daily box. He was trying--and trying
very badly--to conceal the emotions I had conjured up.
"They were talking about you only yesterday," I went on. "That
is, if it was you! A Pullman drawing-room-"
"And a mistake about the tickets," he broke out. "Yes, yes, it's
they all right. Talking about me, did you say? Did Eleanor--I
mean, did Miss Van Coort--express--?"
"She was wondering how she could find you," I said. "You see,
they're busy getting up a house-party and she was running over
her men. 'If I only knew where that dear Doctor Jones was,' she
said, and then asked me, if by any possible chance--"
His fine blue eyes were glistening with all sorts of tender
thoughts. It was really touching. And I was in love myself, you
know.
"So she has remained unmarried!" he exclaimed softly.
"Unmarried--after all these years!"
"She's a very popular girl," I said. "She's had dozens of men at
her feet--but an unfortunate attachment, something that seems to
go back to about three years ago, has apparently determined her
to stay out of the game!"
Doctor Jones dropped his head on his hands and murmured something
that sounded like "Eleanor, Eleanor!" Then he looked up with one
of the most radiant smiles I ever saw on a man's face. "I hope
I'm not presuming on a very short acquaintance," he said, "but
the fact is--why should I not tell you?--Miss Van Coort was the
woman in my life!"