And Burns,
bending close, was saying before he left her: "That's a brave woman.
Ladies are lovely things, but I respect women more. Only a mighty fine
one could be the mother of my friend Jord, and I knew she would meet
this issue like the Spartan she knows how to be."
If, as he stole away downstairs--leaving his patient in the hands of a
somewhat long-suffering maid--he was saying to himself things of a quite
different sort, let him not be blamed for insincerity. He had at the
last used the one stimulant against which most of us are powerless: the
call to be that which we believe another thinks us.
CHAPTER X
THE SURGICAL FIRING LINE
"Len, I've something great to tell you," announced Red Pepper Burns, one
evening in August, as he came out from his office where he had been
seeing a late patient, and joined his wife, who was wandering about her
garden in the twilight. "To-day I've had the compliment of my life. Whom
do you think I'm to operate on day after to-morrow?"
She looked up at him as he stood, his hands in his pockets, looking down
at her. In her sheer white frock, through which gleamed her neck and
arms, her hands full of pink and white snapdragon, she was worth
consideration. Her eyes searched his face and found there a curious
exultation of a very human sort. "How could I guess? Tell me."
"Who should you say was the very last man on earth to do me the honour
of trusting me in a serious emergency?"
She turned away her head, gazing down at a fragrant border of
mignonette, while he watched her, a smile on his lips.
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