"But I think I would rather be gone, dear." Ellen Lessing whispered back.

"Oh, why? When Red's excited over a big success he's simply off his head--there's no knowing what he won't do."

"I prefer him when he has his head. Don't urge, Martha. I've promised to go in the morning with Pauline, and nothing could make me change."

"It's a shame for him to be so absorbed. Who wants a man who can forget the existence of a woman like that?"

"Who wants one who can't? A sorry surgeon he'd be--his hand would shake.

Don't talk about it any more, dear. I'm going to enjoy this evening with you all. And I hope--oh, how I hope--that operation will be a success!"

If it were not to be a success it would not be the fault of the man who worked till one o'clock--two o'clock--three o'clock it the morning to perfect the strangely convoluted tool which was to help "do the trick"

if it could be done. Part of the work was done in the laboratory, part in the machine shop which occupied a corner of the old red barn, where the Green Imp lent her lamps as aids to the task in hand. At four, the instrument finished, sterilized, and put away as if it were worth its weight in gold--which it might easily have been if it were to prove fitted to the peculiar need--Burns went to bed. At six he was up again, had a cold plunge and a hearty breakfast, and at seven was sending the Imp out of the gateway, his office nurse beside him. If Mrs. Lessing hoped the operation would be a success, Miss Mathewson hoped and feared and longed with all her soul. Beneath the uniform and behind the quiet, plain face of the young woman who had been R. P. Burns's professional a.s.sistant for eight years, lived a person than whom none cared more how things went with him. But n.o.body knew that least of all Burns himself.

He only knew that he could not get on without her; that never a suture that she had prepared made trouble for him after an operation: and that none other of the hundred nice details upon which the astounding results of modern surgery depend was likely to go wrong if it were she who was responsible.

At five o'clock that afternoon the Green Inn came back. Arthur Chester had just returned from the office and had thrown himself into a hammock on the porch, for the September weather was like that of June. Catching the throbbing purr of the Imp as the car swung in at the driveway Chester jumped up. Burns flung out a triumphant arm; Miss Mathewson was smiling.

"By George, the old boy's won out!" Chester said to himself, and hurried down to meet the Imp. "All over but the shouting, Red?" he questioned eagerly.

"All over." Burns's face was aflame.

"Pull up and tell me about it."

The car came to a standstill. "Nothing to tell. The curve I got on that bit of steel did the work, around the corner and inside out. The fellows said it wouldn't; stood around and croaked for an hour beforehand. Lord!

I'd have died myself before I'd have failed after that."

"Should have thought they'd have unsettled your nerve," declared Chester, looking as if he would like personally to pitch into the entire medical profession.

"Didn't. Just made me mad. I can do anything when I'm mad--if I can keep my mouth shut." Burns laughed rather shamefacedly. "That's the one advantage of a temper. I say, Ches, don't you want to go with me? There are probably half a dozen calls waiting at the office. I'll run and see."

He jumped out, seized his surgical handbags and hurried away. Miss Mathewson descended more deliberately, Chester plying her with eager questions as he a.s.sisted her. "How was it? Pretty big feather in his cap, Miss Mathewson?"

"Indeed it was, Mr. Chester. Every one of the other city surgeons said it couldn't be done without killing the patient. They all admitted that if she survived the operation she would have every chance for recovery.

They were all there to see. I never knew them all there at once before."

"It would be ungenerous to imagine they wanted him to fail," chuckled Chester, "but we're, all human. How did they take it when he succeeded?"

"They remembered they were gentlemen and scientists," declared Miss Mathewson--"all but one or two who aren't worth mentioning. When they saw he had done it, they began to clap. I don't believe there was ever such a burst of applause in that surgery."

"What did the old fellow do? Tried to look modest, I suppose," laughed Chester, glowing with pride and pleasure.

"He was white all through the operation--he always is, with the strain.

But he turned red all over when they cheered, and just said: 'Thank you, gentlemen.' It really was a wonderful thing, Mr. Chester, even in these days. Only one man has done it, a German, and he has done it only twice.

Doctor Burns will be distinguished after this."

"Good for him! No wonder he looks the way he does--as if he'd like to turn a few handsprings," Chester reflected as he watched the nurse's trim figure walk away.

Burns came back. "Jump in," he said. "Work enough to keep me busy till bedtime. If there hadn't been, I'd have proposed a beefsteak in the woods by way of a celebration and a let down. I'm beginning to get a bit of reaction, of course; should have liked an hour or two of jollity. You and Win, and Mrs. Lessing and I might have--"

"Mrs. Lessing! You old chump, don't you remember she's gone? Why, Mac started for the train with them all in his car, not ten minutes before you came. They haven't been gone fifteen. I begged off from going along because I was dusty and tired. Just got home myself."

R. P. Burns, making the circuit of the driveway behind the houses and now turning the Imp's nose toward the street again, stared at his friend in amazement.

"Why, she wasn't going till day after to-morrow!" he exclaimed.

"I came over last night," drawled Chester in a longsuffering tone, "and explained to you and shouted at you and tried in every way to ram the idea into your head that Pauline had wheedled Mrs. Lessing to start when she did, because their routes lay together as far as Washington. You put me out, calling me names and generally insulting me. It's all right, of course. She's to spend the winter in South Carolina, but she'll be back next summer. You can say good-bye to her then. It'll do just as well."

Burns's watch was in his hand. "What time does that train go?" he demanded.

"Five-thirty. You can't make it." Chester's watch was also out. "What do you care? Send her a picture postcard explaining that you forgot all about her until it was too--"

The last word was jerked back into his throat by the jump of the Green Imp. She shot out of the driveway like a stone out of a catapult, and was off down the mile road to the station, All conveyances going to that train had pa.s.sed quarter-hour before, and the course was nearly clear.

"There's the train's smoke at the tunnel. You can't do it," a.s.serted Chester, pointing to the black hole a few rods to one side of the station whence a gray cloud was issuing. "She only makes a two minute stop. You won't more than get on board before--"

"If I get on board you drive into the city and meet me there, will you?"

begged Burns.

"I can't drive the Imp, Red; you know I can't."

"Then 'phone Johnny Caruthers from the station and send him in for me.

That'll give me fifteen minutes on the train."

"What's the use? Pauline'll be at your elbow every minute. She'll--"

But Burns was paying no attention. He was taking the Imp past a lumbering farm-wagon with only two inches to spare between himself and the ditch. Then the car was at the station, Burns was out and through the building, through the gate and upon the slowly-moving train after a moment's hasty argument with a conductor to whom he could show no ticket. On the platform James Macauley, junior, and Martha Macauley, Winifred Chester, and four small children of a.s.sorted ages stared after the big figure bolting into the Pullman. Bobby Burns gave a shriek of delight followed by a wail of disappointment.

"By George, he's turned up, after all!" exulted Macauley, and the two women looked at each other with meaning, relieved glances.

In the car, the pa.s.sengers observed interestedly the spectacle of a large man with a mop of fiery red hair, from which he had pulled a leather cap, striding, dust-covered, into the car and up to the two prettiest young women there. One of these very smartly clad in blue, received him with looks half gay, half pouting, and with a storm of talk. The other, in gray, with a face upon which no eye could rest once without covertly or openly returning in deference to its charm, gave him a quiet hand and turned away again to wave her farewell to the group of friends on the platform.

"Take my chair and I'll perch on the arm of Ellen's," commanded Pauline, "while you explain, apologize and try to make your peace with us. You'll find it hard work. I may smile for the sake of appearances, but inside I'm really awfully angry. So is Ellen, though she doesn't show it."

Thus Pauline, indefinitely prolonged and repeated, with variations, interpolations, interruptions. It didn't matter; Redfield Pepper Burns heard none of it. Even with Pauline "perching" on the arm of Ellen Lessing's chair, her face within eight inches of the other face, she was not within the field of his vision.

"I am sure the operation was successful," said Mrs. Lessing.

"One can see it in his eyes," declared Pauline. "I never knew hazel eyes could be so brilliant."

"It went through," admitted Burns. "It had to, you know. And I had a thing to make last evening."

"Arthur told us about it," chattered Pauline. "It was like a sna--"

"You didn't miss my not coming over," said Burns. He was leaning forward, his hands on his knees, his rumpled head near enough so that very low tones could reach the person to whom he spoke. He did not once look at Pauline. One would have thought that that fact alone would have quieted her, but it did not.

"Indeed we did--awfully!" cried Pauline.

"Neither did I myself, then, Mrs. Lessing. I miss it now. I shall miss it more whenever I think about it. I don't know of but one thing that can possibly make it up to me."