第18章

No one but Mrs. Breen knew of her daughter's errand, and when Grace came back she alighted from Mr. Libby's buggy with an expression of thanks that gave no clew as to the direction or purpose of it. He touched his hat to her with equal succinctness, and drove away, including all the ladies on the piazza in a cursory obeisance.

"We must ask you, Miss Gleason," said Mrs. Alger. "Your admiration of Dr. Breen clothes you with authority and responsibility."

"I can't understand it at all," Miss Gleason confessed. "But I'm sure there's nothing in it. He isn't her equal. She would feel that it wasn't right--under the circumstances."

"But if Mrs. Maynard was well it would be a fair game, you mean," said Mrs. Alger.

"No," returned Miss Gleason, with the greatest air of candor, "I can't admit that I meant that."

"Well," said the elder lady, "the presumption is against them. Every young couple seen together must be considered in love till they prove the contrary."

"I like it in her," said Mrs. Frost. "It shows that she is human, after all. It shows that she is like other girls. It's a relief."

"She is n't like other girls," contended Miss Gleason darkly.

"I would rather have Mr. Libby's opinion," said Mrs. Merritt.

Grace went to Mrs. Maynard's room, and told her that Dr. Mulbridge was coming directly after dinner.

"I knew you would do it!" cried Mrs. Maynard, throwing her right arm round Grace's neck, while the latter bent over to feel the pulse in her left. "I knew where you had gone as soon as your mother told me you had driven off with Walter Libby. I'm so glad that you've got somebody to consult! Your theories are perfectly right and I'm sure that Dr.

Mulbridge will just tell you to keep on as you've been doing."

Grace withdrew from her caress. "Dr. Mulbridge is not coming for a consultation. He refused to consult with me."

"Refused to consult? Why, how perfectly ungentlemanly! Why did he refuse?"

"Because he is an allopathist and I am a homoeopathist."

"Then, what is he coming for, I should like to know!"

"I have given up the case to him," said Grace wearily.

"Very well, then! " cried Mrs. Maynard, " I won't be given up. I will simply die! Not a pill, not a powder, of his will I touch! If he thinks himself too good to consult with another doctor, and a lady at that, merely because she doesn't happen to be allopathist, he can go along!

I never heard of anything so conceited, so disgustingly mean, in my life.

No, Grace ! Why, it's horrid!" She was silent, and then, "Why, of course," she added, "if he comes, I shall have to see him. I look like a fright, I suppose."

"I will do your hair," said Grace, with indifference to these vows and protests; and without deigning further explanation or argument she made the invalid's toilet for her. If given time, Mrs. Maynard would talk herself into any necessary frame of mind, and Grace merely supplied the monosyllabic promptings requisite for her transition from mood to mood.

It was her final resolution that when Dr. Mulbridge did come she should give him a piece of her mind; and she received him with anxious submissiveness, and hung upon all his looks and words with quaking and with an inclination to attribute her unfavorable symptoms to the treatment of her former physician. She did not spare him certain apologies for the disorderly appearance of her person and her room.

Grace sat by and watched him with perfectly quiescent observance. The large, somewhat uncouth man gave evidence to her intelligence that he was all physician--that he had not chosen his profession from any theory or motive, however good, but had been as much chosen by it as if he had been born a Physician. He was incredibly gentle and soft in all his movements, and perfectly kind, without being at any moment unprofitably sympathetic. He knew when to listen and when not to listen,--to learn everything from the quivering bundle of nerves before him without seeming to have learnt anything alarming; he smiled when it would do her good to be laughed at, and treated her with such grave respect that she could not feel herself trifled with, nor remember afterwards any point of neglect.

When he rose and left some medicines, with directions to Grace for giving them and instructions for contingencies, she followed him from the room.

"Well?" she said anxiously.

"Mrs. Maynard is threatened with pneumonia. Or, I don't know why I should say threatened," he added; "she has pneumonia."

"I supposed--I was afraid so," faltered the girl.

"Yes." He looked into her eyes with even more seriousness than he spoke.

"Has she friends here?" he asked.

"No; her husband is in Cheyenne, out on the plains."

"He ought to know," said Dr. Mulbridge. "A great deal will depend upon her nursing--Miss--ah--Dr. Breen."

"You need n't call me Dr. Breen," said Grace. "At present, I am Mrs.

Maynard's nurse."

He ignored this as he had ignored every point connected with the interview of the morning. He repeated the directions he had already given with still greater distinctness, and, saying that he should come in the morning, drove away. She went back to Louise: inquisition for inquisition, it was easier to meet that of her late patient than that of her mother, and for once the girl spared herself.

"I know he thought I was very bad," whimpered Mrs. Maynard, for a beginning. "What is the matter with me?"

"Your cold has taken an acute form; you will have to go to bed."

"Then I 'm going to be down sick! I knew I was! I knew it! And what am I going to do, off in such a place as this? No one to nurse me, or look after Bella! I should think you would be satisfied now, Grace, with the result of your conscientiousness: you were so very sure that Mr. Libby was wanting to flirt with me that you drove us to our death, because you thought he felt guilty and was trying to fib out of it."

"Will you let me help to undress you?" asked Grace gently. "Bella shall be well taken care of, and I am going to nurse you myself, under Dr.