At the Age of Eve Part 30

He dusted off a s.p.a.ce on the wall then sprang lightly up to a seat by my side.

"I've been waiting for you to brighten up a bit and look like yourself," he continued after a few minutes of happy silence. "I have something to show you."

"Something to show me?" I looked at him wonderingly.

"Something I brought you from--from the city."

"But I told you not to bring me anything."

"I know. But I had already bought it then, and I couldn't take it back to the jeweler and tell him that my lady had turned it down, could I?"

He drew a little case from his pocket, a long, slender one this time, and as I found my eyes fixed with an eager fascination upon his hands as they worked for a moment with the catch, I seemed to see stretching before me a long vista of years, each one punctuated with quarrels like the one we had just endured, and the rough places left by these ruptures filled in and smoothed over by myriads of these small, dainty jewel-boxes. But Richard's deft fingers had opened the case, and he pa.s.sed it over to me. I gave a little gasp of astonished delight as I saw lying upon its bed of velvet a string of pearls--white, softly-glistening, beautiful things.

"Let's see how they look on you," he suggested, unfastening the dull gold clasp and slipping the lovely chain around my neck. He fastened them securely, then smiled approval as he leaned back and viewed the effect.

"I've wanted you to have something like this ever since I've known you," he said with the air of a connoisseur as he still held back and looked at the pearls lying close around the neck of my collarless blouse. "So when I happened to see these the other day in--the city, I decided that they were exactly what I wanted for my little girl."

I was opening and shutting the box as he talked, and when he mentioned seeing them in the city I idly glanced at the name on the lining, and saw that the case bore the name of a well-known firm in St. Louis.

"Why, Richard," I cried, "did you go all the way to St. Louis to find them?"

I laughed, but there were two tiny lines between his eyes.

"Don't say anything about it to mother, but the truth is I did have to go to St. Louis while I was away from home this time."

"Your mother thinks you were down in some little country town--away from a telephone!"

"Well, it was a--business trip. She wouldn't be interested, and I never have believed in a man boring his family with his business affairs."

"I shouldn't be bored, Richard," I began, hoping so fervently that he was going to confide in me that half the joy I should have been feeling over my beautiful new possession was turned into pain when I saw that he was not.

He changed the subject quietly and we discussed various minor matters, until I remembered, with a start, that it was time for us to be going home. It must be long past noon. I mentioned this to Richard and he jumped down immediately.

"I haven't heard the train whistle, have you?"

"No, but we haven't been listening for it. Look at your watch."

He did so, and we were both surprised and not a little ashamed when we saw that it was half-past one.

"We'll have to hurry," he said briefly, and we walked home faster, I dare say, than ever lovers walked away from that delightful spot before.

When we reached the house we found that the doctor from the city had indeed arrived; the preparations for the operation being well under way. There was not to be an hour's delay, Sophie told us, as she paused on her way up the steps. Her hands were full of glistening instruments, and a negro servant followed with kettles of boiled water.

"What does Gordon think of her condition?" Richard asked, as he eyed Sophie's burden with a little shrinking.

"Doctor Gordon couldn't come," she answered abstractedly as she looked around and gave the servant some directions about keeping a bountiful supply of water that had been boiled, "there was a wreck on the road that he is surgeon for--it didn't amount to much, but still he had to be there, so he telephoned Doctor Cooley that this young colleague of his whom he sent to do the operation is thoroughly competent--it seems that they operate together a great deal. I didn't catch the young doctor's name when he was introduced--and I've been too busy since to ask."

"Doctor Morgan," I said, feeling sure that Doctor Gordon would send no one but Alfred on a case like this.

"Doctor Morgan--the _devil_ it is!" Richard's voice burst out so suddenly and so fiercely that I turned and looked at him in amazement.

Then, for the first time, I realized how easy it might be to be afraid of him. Fierce and sudden as the words were, they were spoken in his deep, even voice, and not a muscle of his face showed the intense fury which I felt that he was laboring under. It was a cold, cruel anger, and it showed only in his eyes. They were glittering like two sharp-pointed steel blades. "Doctor Morgan here--and you knew all the time that he was coming!"

He looked at me so accusingly that Sophie sensed the point of the situation at once, although she had never heard Alfred's name mentioned before; and she broke in with a light laugh.

"Why, he didn't know himself that he was coming until ten minutes before train time. It was too late even to find a nurse to bring with him, so I am going to help in the operation."

Her words had the effect of quieting, in a measure, this insane suspicion of Richard's; and he and I followed her up the broad staircase. She led the way into the room which had been hastily divested of its rich furnis.h.i.+ngs and transformed into a semblance of an operating-room; and we two followed automatically. Sophie pa.s.sed in and began busying herself about the preparations, but just inside the doorway we stopped.

Standing in the middle of the floor, near the end of a long table upon which had been placed several bowls of water, some clear, others light blue, his top s.h.i.+rt off and his arms up to his elbows thickly coated over with a soft lather, was Alfred. Another young fellow, whom I afterward learned was a local physician, stood near the table; and he too was busily "scrubbing up." As we came into the room Alfred bade Sophie hurry up with her own preparations.

"Would you object to hearing a word from me before your manipulations go further?" Richard's voice broke in, after the briefest and most perfunctory of greetings, which fortunately were divested of any hypocritical handshaking on account of Alfred's green soapiness. "I understand that our family physician, Doctor Cooley, telephoned to the city for Doctor _Gordon_ to come down here and operate upon my sister."

"Doctor Gordon received the message, but was detained by a small wreck on the Eastern," Alfred said quietly, rinsing the soap-suds from his hands and motioning Sophie to drop another b.i.+.c.hloride tablet into the next bowl of water. "He sent me to do the work."

"So I have been informed," Richard said, his eyes looking far colder and more cutting than the steel instruments which Sophie was now rattling about in a big pan, "but--as it happens--I don't want you to do the work."

The insult was so barefaced and so ugly that Sophie suddenly turned scarlet and the young doctor bending over the bowl of water busied himself unnecessarily with a bottle of green soap. Richard himself began nervously tampering with his watch-fob, while I afterward recalled that my fingers were playing convulsively with the pearls which were still around my neck. It was an _electrical_ moment and we all showed signs of weakening before the current--all except Alfred.

He stood in the same spot at the end of the table, directing straight at Richard his level, steady glance, and looking the personification of simple dignity--in an unders.h.i.+rt.

"That might put a different aspect upon the matter," he said slowly after a moment's deliberation. Not a muscle of his face changed, and no one less well acquainted with him than I am could have detected the hardness in his voice.

"_Might_ put a different aspect?" Richard looked incredulous.

"Yes, it might--if the patient were a minor, and you her sole guardian."

"Ah! Then you mean to ignore my rights?"

"I do--if you wish to put it that way. Your sister's condition is critical; and there is no one else to operate."

"Then there is no appeal to be made to your pride?" I do not know what Richard meant, nor do I believe that he knew himself, for he surely would not have run the risk of trying to get another surgeon when it had been made so clear to him that the delay would be fatal. Alfred seemed to realize that there was no more occasion for argument than if he had been talking to an unreasonable child--or a dangerous lunatic.

"No; my pride lies dormant in a case like this," he answered simply.

"I acknowledge only Duty."

Then, at Alfred's words, it seemed that the magic change which I have before noticed comes over Richard when he sees that he has gone far enough, began to make itself felt. It appeared that he was not going to have the courage to turn about and apologize, as he had done with me earlier in the day; but he began to do what he considered all that was ever necessary from _him_ to ordinary mortals. He began to back, sullenly.

"Of course, if it is only an ordinary case of appendicitis _you_ might do," he admitted grudgingly, "but--suppose there are complications?"

I give Richard credit for not intending this worst insult of all. He was so entirely absorbed in gaining his own end, and that end was proving to Alfred that he was incompetent to operate, that he failed to consider the words he used. To him this was only a simple argument in favor of his theory. Alfred met the thrust as he had met the minor ones.

"If there are complications, I shall grapple with them," he answered quietly. "That's what I studied surgery for."

Sophie came across the room then and told us in a low voice that they were about ready. Would we please wait outside? Without another word Richard took me by the arm and we walked out together. He held my arm tightly as we made our way cautiously down the steps; cautiously because it had suddenly grown very dark and there were threatening rumbles in the distance, following vivid flashes of lightning. The fumes of the anesthetic were filling the house, while outside the big drops of rain were beginning to pelt down, making little comet-shaped streaks of wetness against the window-panes.

We heard the shuffling steps as they moved Evelyn into the room and placed her upon the table; then we heard Alfred call from the head of the steps, his voice calm and unruffled as it would be in the case of any gentleman making a request of another.

"Mr. Chalmers, will you call the power-house and have them turn on the lights?"