Red Pepper Burns Part 9

"I suppose it does," rejoined Burns from the depths of a big, dusty leather chair where he sat stretched in an att.i.tude expressing extreme fatigue. "But I don't care a hang."

Macauley looked at him. His eyes were closed. His arms lay upon the chair arms, relaxed and limp. For the first time his friend observed what might have been noted by a critical eye on any day during the last fortnight. The lines on the ordinarily strong, health-tinted face were deeper than he had ever seen them; the cheeks were thinner; there were even shadows under the thick eyelashes which outlined the lids of the closed eyes.

"Look here, old man," Macauley cried, sudden conviction seizing him, "you're working altogether too hard. This miserable city epidemic has done you out. I've thought all the time you were trying to cover too much ground."

"Ground's had to be covered," replied the other briefly, without opening his eyes.

"Have the other fellows worked as hard as you?"

"Harder."

"I don't believe it. They're all city men. You've done all this city work and looked after your own patients here, too, to say nothing of living in both places at once. With your housekeeper gone home to her sick folks, and Miss Mathewson off on one of your cases--no wonder this place looks the way it does."

"It doesn't matter. Cut it out about the place. I'm going back in ten minutes."

"You are! Not going to get to bed?"

"Don't know. I might s.n.a.t.c.h a nap now if you'd quit talking."

Macauley closed his mouth. Presently he got up and stole out of the room. He was back again in a trice, a flask in one hand, a soda siphon in the other, and a small gla.s.s balanced on his thumb. When Burns, at the sound of a clock ticking somewhere, rubbed his eyes with his fists striking in and reluctantly opened them, Macauley spoke briskly:

"See here--I'm going to give you a bracer. I know your confounded notions, but they don't cut any figure when you need something to pull you together the way you do to-night."

He started to measure out the amber liquid into the gla.s.s, but Burns put up a hand.

"Much obliged, but I don't want any."

"You idiot--don't you know when to make an exception to your rule? I admit you've won out over the other fellows just by keeping a steady hand, but you're dead as a dog for rest to-night and you need a stiff one, if I'm any judge."

"You're not--for me." Burns sat up. "O Heavens, man, if I were going to break my rule at all it wouldn't be for a drink of anything. It would be for a stab in the arm with something that beats your stuff all out for stimulating the fatigue out of a fellow and making him feel like working till he drops."

"Why don't you have it then?" asked Macauley curiously. "I should think if ever a used-up chap were justified in--"

"Don't give me that talk if you're my friend. It's hard enough to hold out without resorting to that game. I don't need you to advise it. I've seen enough of that sort of suicide. Buller and Fields are both down and out, and they began to brace early in the epidemic. Van Horn's a wreck, though he keeps going; and I tell you, I've more respect for that man than I ever had before. He's a poseur and a toadier, no doubt of that, and I've always despised him for it, but he has real ability and he's worked like a fiend through this muss, and not all for his rich patients, either. But he's weakening fast, and it's drug stimulation that's done it. No, sir: not for mine. But I'll make myself a cup of coffee, for I've got to keep awake, and I shall sleep in my tracks if I don't."

He got up and stumbled out into his deserted kitchen. Macauley followed, helping as best he knew how, and watched his friend gulp down two cupfulls of a muddy liquid with feeling of admiration such as a small act of large significance may sometimes stir in one who apprehends.

Two days later Burns, starting toward home in the Imp at a late hour in the morning, pa.s.sed a figure on a corner of a city street waiting for the outward-bound trolley. He slowed down beside it.

"May I take you home?" he asked, cap in hand, and interest showing in eyes which a moment before had been heavy with fatigue.

Ellen Lessing looked up. "I shall be very glad," she answered, as she met his outstretched hand and let it draw her upward to the vacant seat. "The car is always so full at this hour, and I was longing for the feeling of the wind against my face."

"It's cool for late August, and you'll get a breeze on the road home that will refresh you. You haven't touched water or milk in this plague-stricken district, I hope?"

"No, indeed. Martha warned me a dozen times before I left. How are things? Any better?"

"No new cases in twenty-four hours, and the old ones well in hand. I'm getting home earlier to-day than I've done for a month, and hope to have a few hours off duty. I was planning what to do with them as I came upon you."

"I should think you could do nothing better with them than to go home and sleep," she advised, looking up at his face with a critical, friendly survey of the signs of weariness written plainly there. "You are worn out, and that means something when one says it of so strong a man as you."

"I could sleep a week, but I'm not sure that a few hours would more than aggravate my need. Besides, I shouldn't be at home an hour before I should be called out again. No, my plans were forming themselves differently, and now that I've met you they're taking definite shape. I want--well--suppose I don't tell you! Would you trust me to take you off on a rest-seeking expedition without explaining what I mean to do?"

"On a 'rest-seeking expedition'?" she repeated. "Doctor Burns, are you sure you hadn't better go on that alone? Suppose I chatter all the way?"

He smiled. "You're not a chatterer. And I don't want to go alone. I haven't had a chance for an hour with you for a month, I think. This is the only way I can get it. Will you go?"

"You provoke my curiosity. Yes, I think I'll go. I've been shopping all the morning and I deserve a reward of rest, if you're sure you know where to find it."

He turned the Imp abruptly aside from the boulevard leading out of town down which they had been speeding. He made a detour of certain side streets which brought him up before a small side establishment bearing a sign which set forth an alluring invitation to motoring parties in need of food. He disappeared therein, and was absent for the s.p.a.ce of a full twenty minutes. When he returned he was followed by a waiter with a hamper to whose bestowal in the back of the car he looked carefully.

As they sped away again, Burns turned to his companion, a smile of antic.i.p.ation on his face, to meet a glance of some apprehension.

"You're not repenting your rash trust of me already, are you?" he demanded.

"I'm remembering that Martha has four guests at luncheon to-day, and expects me to be there!"

"Is that all? Don't let that worry you. We'll simply have a breakdown somewhere on the road conveniently near to a spot I know, where I can broil the beefsteak I have in that hamper, and make the coffee.

'Unavoidable detention' will be your apology."

"'Irresistible temptation' will be my confession," she admitted. "I'm not good at subterfuge and I'm so hungry that the mere mention of beefsteak out-of-doors--"

"If it weighs against the plates and salads of a woman's luncheon I shall have a great respect for you. Come on, let's run away! You from social duties, I from professional ones. I'll agree to stand out Martha in your defense. Unless, of course, the opportunity to wear a pretty frock and throw all the other women in the shade--"

She laughed. "That's precisely what Martha wants me to do!"

"Then fail her and let the other women win. It's too late to repent, anyhow, for here's where we turn off."

The Imp itself seemed to be running away, so swiftly and silently it covered the new road leading off into the hills. Presently it was climbing them.

"I want to get where no call-boy monotonously repeating 'Doc-tor Bur-rns, Doc-tor Bur-rns', can get hold of me," the Imp's driver explained. "I suppose you're not dressed--nor shod--for a rough walk of a quarter of a mile where the car can't go?"

"I'll sacrifice skirts and soles," she promised. "Isn't the air out here glorious? I thought I was tired when I left the city: now I could climb that hill and enjoy it."

"That's precisely what we'll do, then. There's a view from the top worth the scramble, but I wasn't sure you'd be game for it. Perhaps I'll know you better at the end of this afternoon than I do now. Is there a jolly, athletic girl hidden away under that demure manner of yours I've seen so far, I wonder?"

"Lead the way up that hill and you'll find out," she answered with a challenging flash of her dark eyes.

He lodged the Imp among a clump of pines, got out the hamper and turned to his companion. She had pulled off her gloves, removed hat and veil and folded her long, gray coat away in the car. This left her dressed in the trim gray skirt of walking length and the gray silk blouse she had worn for shopping. Burns looked at her with approval.

"Transformed by magic from a fashionable lady in street attire to a girl ready for the woods," was his comment. "I'm glad you leave off the hat--I'll match you by doffing the cap. Now aren't we a pair? Are you in for a rush up that first slope? Jove, I'm not half so tired as I was an hour ago, already!"

He caught her hand in his, his other arm through the hamper handle, and ran with her up the slope. At the edge of the steeper climb to come they stopped, breathing fast. "This isn't the way to begin, of course,"

he admitted as they both regained their breath, laughing at their own enthusiasm, "but I couldn't resist that dash--a sort of dash for freedom. Now we'll take it more easily."

They worked their way up and up among the rocks, he always in advance, reaching down a muscular right arm to help her at the steeper places, and once giving her a knee to step on when progress could be made only up the straight face of a big boulder. It was undoubtedly a stiff climb for a woman, but she showed no signs of flinching, and though her cheeks glowed richly and her wavy black locks were a trifle loosened from their usual order when at last she set foot upon the plateau at the top, she showed only the temporary fatigue to be expected after such unusual exertion.

"That makes the blood course through one's arteries in a way worth while," was his comment as he regarded with satisfaction the splendid colour in her checks and the sparkle in her eyes. "Talk about rest!