His housekeeper looked after him, as he left the room. "He's terrible blue, to be so polite as that," she reflected. "When he's happy he's in such a hurry he don't have time to thank a body. Of the two. I guess I'd rather have him hustlin' rude!"

In the middle of the day Burns met Van Horn.

"Sorry the case went wrong, Doctor," said his colleague. There was a peculiar sparkle in his eye as he offered this customary, perfunctory condolence.

"Thank you," replied Burns, shortly.

"I didn't wish to seem skeptical, and you certainly have had remarkable success in somewhat similar cases. But it seemed to me that in advising as I did I was holding the only safe ground. Personally I'm not in favour of taking chances and in this case it seemed to me they were pretty slim."

"They were."

"I did my best to a.s.sure the family that you were within your rights."

"Much obliged."

"I don't blame you for feeling broken up about it," declared the other man, soothingly. "But we all have to learn by experience, and conservatism is one of the hardest lessons."

An ugly light was growing in Red Pepper's eye. He got away without further words. Only last week Van Horn had been helped out of a serious and baffling complication by Burns himself, and no credit given to the rescuer. From him this sort of high and mighty sympathy was particularly hard to bear.

Around the corner he encountered Grayson. This, as it was so little to be desired, was naturally to be expected.

"Too bad, Doctor," Grayson began, stopping to shake hands. Van Horn had not even shaken hands. "I hoped till the last that we were all wrong and you were right. But that heart seemed dangerously shaky to me, though I know you didn't think so."

"I didn't."

"There was a queer factor in the case, one I felt from the first, though I couldn't put my finger on it. It was the thing that made me advise against operation."

"I understand."

"But of course there's no use crying over spilt milk; you did your best," continued Grayson cheerfully. "Pretty little girl--plucky, too.

Sorry to see her go."

Burns nodded--and bolted. These Job's comforters--were they trying to make the thing seem even more unbearable than it already was? Certainly they were succeeding admirably. He went on about his work with set teeth, expecting at the next turn to run into Fields. He would undoubtedly find him at the hospital, ready to greet him with some croaking sympathy. True to his expectations Fields met him at the door.

He himself was looking particularly prosperous and cheerful, as people have a way of appearing to us when our trouble is root theirs.

"Good morning, Doctor." Fields shook hands, evidently trying to modify his own demeanour of unusual good cheer over a list of patients all safely on the road to ultimate recovery. "I want to express my regret over the way things came out last night. Mighty pretty operation--if it had succeeded. Sorry it didn't. Better luck next time."

"Much obliged." Burns had a bull-dog expression now. Not the most discerning observer would have imagined he felt a twinge of regret over his failure.

"Would you mind telling me what made you so confident that the spleen had nothing to do with the complication?" Fields inquired in a deprecatory manner which made Burns long to twist his neck.

"Did you suggest that it did--beforehand?"

"I believe I did--if I remember."

"I believe you didn't--nor any other man till I got in and found it.

You all observed it then--and so did I. Excuse me--I'm in too much of a hurry to stop to discuss the case now. I'm due upstairs." And once more Burns made good his escape.

"Sore," was Field's verdict, looking after the man who had been his successful rival for so long that this exception could hardly fail to afford a decided, if rather shame-faced satisfaction to a brother surgeon not above that quite human' sentiment.

But in the course of the day Burns met Buller. He had dreaded to meet him, but not for the same reason that he had dreaded the others. Meeting Buller was quite another story.

"Old boy, I'm so sorry I could cry, if it would do you any good," said Buller, his steady, honest gaze meeting his friend's miserable eyes.

For the defiance had melted out of Burns's aspect and left it frankly wretched before the hearty friendship in this man's whole att.i.tude; friendship which could be counted upon, like that of his office nurse's, to the end of all things.

Burns swallowed hard, making no reply, because he could not. But his hand returned the steady pressure of Butler's in a way that showed he was grateful.

"I knew you'd take it hard--much harder than common. And, of course, I understand why. Any man would. But I wish I could make you feel the way I do about it. There's not one particle of reason for you to blame yourself. I've thought the case over and over from start to finish, and I'm more and more convinced that she wouldn't have lived without the operation. You gave her her only chance. Take that in? I mean it. I went around there this morning and told the family so--I took that liberty.

It was a comfort to them, though they believed anyway. They haven't lost a particle of faith in you."

Burns bit his lip till he had it under control, and could get out a word or two of grat.i.tude.

"And now I want a favour of you," the other went on hurriedly. "A case I want you to see with me--possible operation within a day or two."

Burns hesitated an instant, changing colour. Then: "Are you sure you'd better have me?" he asked, a trifle huskily.

The other looked him in the eye. "Why not? I know of n.o.body so competent. Come, man put that Satan of unreasonable self-reproach behind you. When man becomes omniscient and omnipotent there'll be no errors in his judgment or his performance--and not before. Meanwhile we're all in the soup of fallibility together. I--I'm not much at expressing myself elegantly: but I trust I'm sufficiently forcible," smiled Buller.

"Er--will you meet me at four at my office? We'll go to the Arnolds'

together, and I'll give you the history of the case on the way. It's a corker, I a.s.sure you, and it's keeping me awake nights."

Proceeding on his way alone in the Imp he had not wanted even Johnny Caruthers's company to-day Burns found the heaviness of his spirit lifting slightly very slightly. Tenderness toward the little lost patient who had loved and trusted him so well began gradually to usurp the place of the black hatred of what he felt to be his own incompetency. Pa.s.sing a florist's shop he suddenly felt like giving that which, as it had occurred to him before, had seemed to him would be only a mockery from his hands. He went in and selected flowers--dozens and dozens of white rosebuds, fresh and sweet--and sent them, with no card at all, to her home.

Then he drove on to his next patient, to find himself surrounded by an eager group of happy people, all rejoicing in what appeared to them to be a marvelous deliverance from a great impending danger, entirely due to his own foresight and skill. He knew well enough that it way Nature herself who had come to the rescue, and frankly told them so. But they continued to thrust the honour upon him, and he could but come away with a softened heart.

"I'll go on again," he said to himself. "I've got to go on. Last night I thought I couldn't, but, of course, that's nonsense. The best I can G.o.d knows I try... And I'll never make that mistake again... But oh!--little Lucile--little Lucille!"

CHAPTER X. IN WHICH HE PROVES HIMSELF A HOST

"Winifred," said R. P. Burns, invading Mrs. Arthur Chester's sunny living-room one crisp October morning, leather cap in hand, "I'm going to give a dinner to-night. Stag dinner for Grant, of Edinburgh--man who taught me half the most efficient surgery I know. He's over here, and I've just found it out. Only been in the city two days: goes to-morrow."

"How interesting, Red! Where do you give it? At one of the clubs or hotels in town?"

"That's the usual thing, of course. That's why I'm not going to do it.

Grant's a rugged sort of commonsense chap--hates show and fuss. He gets an overpowering lot of being 'entertained' in precisely the conventional style. He's a pretty big gun now, and he can't escape. When I told him I was going to have him out for a plain dinner at home he looked as relieved as if I'd offered him a reprieve for some sentence."

"Undoubtedly he'll enjoy the relaxation. Hut you'll have a caterer out from town, I suppose?"

"Not on your life. Cynthia can cook well enough for me, and I know Ronald Grant's tastes like a book. But what I want to ask is that you and Martha Macauley will come over and see that the table looks shipshape. Cynthia's a captain of the kitchen, but her ideas of table decoration are a trifle too original even for me. Miss Mathewson's away on her vacation. I'll send in some flowers. My silver and china are nothing remarkable, bur as long as the food's right that doesn't matter."

"I shall be delighted to do it for you, Red, as you know. So will Martha. We--"

"Thanks immensely. I want Ches of course, and Jim Macauley's coming. The rest are M, D.'s. I must be off."

He would have been off, without doubt, in an instant more, for he was half out of the door as he spoke, but Winifred Chester flew after him and laid an insistent hand on his coat sleeve.

"Red! You must stop long enough to tell me something about it. How can I help you unless I know your plans? What hour have you set? How many are coming, and who? How many courses are you going to have? Have you engaged a waitress?"