Red Pepper Burns Part 20

He was sorry for the girl, but he was not in the least anxious about her. She would get over it; it was not his fault--he was conscience-clear on that. If ever he had been coolly--however kindly--professional in his bearing it had been in this home of great wealth, where it would have gone against his inmost grain to have seemed to court liking. If anything, his orders had been more curt, his concessions fewer, his whole treatment of the case on simpler lines than it might have been in almost any less pretentious home with which he was familiar.

He ran down the stone steps in eager haste to be gone, his vision still engaged with the reproachful look Evelyn's mother had given him when she heard of his incredible refusal to accompany the Walworths on the luxuriously-equipped expedition in search of recuperation and enjoyment for the idolized only daughter. "This settles me with them to the end of time, I suppose," he said to himself. As the car ran down the drive, he straightened his shoulders with a sense of thankfulness that his practice was not often in the homes of the comparatively few people who can afford to buy even that most precious of commodities, the time of others, when that time has been consecrated to certain uses.

"Not going to stop for lunch, Doctor?" inquired young Caruthers anxiously, as the round of calls went on and one o'clock pa.s.sed, with the Imp in a portion of the city remote from the hotel at which Burns was accustomed to refresh himself and Johnny when home was out of the question.

"We'll go to the hospital next, and I shall be there a couple of hours.

You can go and fill up then. I must be back at the office by four--for engagements."

So the day went. The busy physician who goes out of town for even a five days' vacation must plan for it and do much arranging in various ways.

In spite of the fact that it would still be many weeks before Burns could attempt surgery again, he was having plenty to do. Only the determination to get away this time without fail made it possible for him to go. But there would be never a time when he could better be spared, and he meant to let nothing hinder his purpose.

"The arm's coming on well," was Doctor Buller's verdict late that afternoon as he gave the healing member its usual manipulation and ma.s.sage. "It takes patience to wait, though, doesn't it, Burns? Never tried a broken arm myself, but I should say that hand must be itching to be at work in the operating-room again."

"Itching! It's burning, blistering, scarifying! I never knew how I liked that part of my work till I had to come down to an exclusive practice in pills and plasters. Grayson's doing a stunt to-day that would have driven me mad with envy if I could have stopped to look on. Doing it cleverly, too, by the report I had from Van Horn just now. When Van takes the trouble to praise another man it means something."

"Means it's been forced from him," commented Buller. "Besides, Van enjoys praising Grayson to you. He's enjoyed your smashed arm, too, the old fraud. Was he ever so decent to you before?"

Burns laughed. "You can't strike fire that way today," he declared.

"Hold on! You're not going to put that arm back into the splints?"

"Of course I am. It lacks two days yet off the shortest modern regulation period. Come on here."

"Leave 'em off. I'll take the consequences."

"Don't be foolish, man. If I had my way I'd keep the thing put up another full week. I'm not an advocate of this hurry business."

"I am. The arm's well enough to come out. I'll wear it in a sling, but I want my coat sleeve on, and I'm going to have it on. Fix me up, will you? I'm in a hurry."

"You're going on a journey?"

"Yes. Get busy."

"That's the very reason why you should keep that arm out of danger till you get back. Jostling round in a crowd."

"Is this my arm or yours?" thundered Burns.

Buller laughed. "Don't knock me down with it, Pepper-pot. It may be your arm, but you're my patient, and I--"

"Don't you fool yourself. If you won't fix me up I'll go out with it hanging, I can judge my own condition. Will you dress me and put any arm in this sling here, or must I send for Grayson? He's none of your idiotic conservatives."

"Keep quiet, and I'll make you look pretty, little boy. I see--these are new clothes just home from the tailor, and they're an elegant fit. Bully fresh scarf, peach of a pin, brand-new black silk sling--Oh, I say!"

For with his good left arm Burns was threatening his professional friend in a way that looked ominous. But a laugh was in his eye, now that he had got his way, and the altercation ended in a fire of jokes. Then Burns stood up.

"You're a jewel, Buller boy," said he. "You've brought me through in great shape. It was a nasty fracture, and you've given me an arm that'll be as good as new. I'm grateful--you know that. Now, if you'll look over that list I gave you of cases here in the city, and go out once to take a look at Letty Tressler, I'll be ever faithfully yours. Griggs'll see to my village practice. Now I'm off."

"Hope you enjoy your trip. Must be a concentrated pleasure, to be crammed into five days and still make you look like a schoolboy just let out," observed Buller as Burns turned, with his band on the door-k.n.o.b.

"A dose doesn't have to be big to be powerful," rejoined Burns, opening the door.

"Nitro-glycerin, eh?" Buller called after the departing bulk of his friend. "Don't let it carry you too far up. You might come down with a thud!"

"He's right enough there," was what Burns murmured to himself as he caught the elevator in the great building in which Buller's office was a crowded corner. "I may come down in just that style. But better that than any more of this dead level of suspense. I don't think I could stand that one more day."

He and Johnny Caruthers whirled home in the Imp to find Burns's village office as crowded as Buller's city one. It was late before he could get his dinner, and after it he was kept busy turning calls over to other men. It was the usual experience to have work pile up during the last hours, as if Fate were against his breaking his chains and meant to tie him hand and foot.

"I'm going to get out of this right now," he announced suddenly to Miss Mathewson an hour before train time, as he turned away from a siege over the telephone with one hysterical lady who felt that her life depended upon his remaining to see her through an attack of indigestion. "If I don't, something will come in that will pull hard to keep me home, and I'm not going to be kept. I'll trust you not to look me up for the next hour, for I'll not tell you where I'm going, and you can't guess, you know. Good-bye. Be a good girl."

He wrung her hand, looking at her with that warmth of friendliness which he was accustomed, when in the mood, to bestow on her, recognizing how invaluable she was to him, and never once recking what it meant to her to be so closely a.s.sociated with him. She answered in her usual quiet way, wishing him a safe journey and bidding him be very careful of the arm, no longer protected except by the silken sign that injury had been done.

"In a crowd, you know, they won't notice the sling," she warned him.

"Won't they? Well, if my trusty left can't protect my battered right I've forgotten my boxing tricks. Don't be anxious about that, little friend. See that Amy Mathewson has a good time in my absence, will you?

She's looking just a bit worn, to me."

She smiled, but her eyes did not meet his: she dared not let them. With all his kindness to her he did not often speak with the real affection which was in his voice now. She understood that he was, for some reason, keyed high over his prospective journey even higher than he had been ten days before when on the point of leaving. And she knew well enough where he was going, though he had not told her. It would have taken thirty-six hours to go to Washington, spend a brief time there and return. It was going to take five days to go to South Carolina, remain long enough to transact his business--was it business?--and come back. And there had been no more attempts to write letters by way of an amanuensis. The affection for his a.s.sistant in his manner to her was genuine, she did not doubt that, but it did not deceive her for a moment. So, she did not let her eyes meet his. They rested, instead, on the scarfpin which Buller had termed a "peach," but they did not see it. She could not remember when it had been so hard to maintain that quiet control of herself which had long since made her employer cease to reckon with the possibilities of fire beneath.

R. P. Burns stole away with Johnny and the Imp, without so much as letting his neighbours know of his intentions. He had made sure that they were all well; that no incipient scarlet fever or invading measles was threatening them. He smiled to himself as the car went past the Chester house, to think how interested they would be to know where he was going. But he got safely off and n.o.body opened a door at sound of the Imp to call to him to come in a minute because somebody seemed not quite well.

And then, after all, he ran upon Arthur Chester--and at the city station, to which he had taken the precaution to go, although the ten-thirty stopped for a half-minute at the village. It must be admitted that he tried to dodge his best friend, but he did not succeed. His shoulders were too conspicuous: he could not get away.

"Going to see an out-of-town patient at this hour of night?" queried Chester, coming up warmly interested, as best friends have a trick of being, in spite of all that can be done to avert their curiosity.

"Where else would I be going?"

"I don't know where else, but I doubt if it's to see a patient. There's an air about you that's not professional. You--er--you can't be going to Washington? There's n.o.body there now."

"No, only a few Government officials and some odds and ends of hangers-on. To be sure, Congress is in session, but there's n.o.body there. My train's been called, Ches; so long."

"Let me carry your bag." Chester reached for it. "I say, this isn't a tool-kit--this is a stunner of a regulation travelling bag. See here, Red," he was rushing along on the other's side, fairly running to keep up with Burns's strides--"how long are you going to be gone?"

"Long enough to get a change of air. The atmosphere's heavy here with inquisitive people who call themselves your friends. See here, Ches, you're not looking well. You need rest and sleep. Go home and go to bed."

"You're always telling me to go home and go to bed. Not till I see which train you take," panted Chester, his eyes sparkling. "Ha! Going to turn in at Number Four gate, are you? Sorry I can't take your bag inside.

Well, possibly I can guess your destination. Got your section clear through to South Carolina? I say, keep your head, old man, keep your head!"

Burns turned about, shook his fist at Arthur Chester, seized his bag, rushed through the gateway and boarded the last of the long string of Pullmans. On the platform he pulled off his hat and waved it at his friend. He could forgive anybody for anything tonight.

CHAPTER XIII. IN WHICH HE MAKES NO EVENING CALL

Burns opened the white gate--it was sagging a little on its hinges--and walked up the moss-grown path between the rows of liveoaks to the tall-columned portico of the still stately, if somewhat timeworn and decayed, mansion among the shrubbery. It was just at dusk, and far away somewhere a whippoorwill was calling. It was the only sound on the quiet air.

The door was opened by an old negro servant, who hesitated over his answer to the question put by this unknown person looming up before him with his arm in a sling. Mrs. Elmore was in, but she was not well and could not see any visitors this evening.

"Is Mrs. Lessing in?"