Red Peppers Patients | Page 5

the confirmation of his insight. Burns shortly returned, a two-year-old boy on his shoulder, his wife following, drawn along by the child's hand. Coolidge looked, and liked that which he saw. And he understood, with one glance into the dark eyes which met his, one look at the firm sweetness of the lovely mouth, that the heart of the husband must safely trust in this woman.
Burns went away at once, leaving Coolidge in the company of Ellen, and the guest, eager though he was for the professional advice he had come to seek, could not regret the necessity which gave him this hour with a woman who seemed to him very unusual. Charm she possessed in full measure, beauty in no less, but neither of these terms nor both together could wholly describe Ellen Burns. There was something about her which seemed to glow, so that he soon felt that her presence in the quietly rich and restful living room completed its furnishing, and that once having seen her there the place could never be quite at its best without her.
Burns came back, and the three went out to dinner. The small boy, a handsome, auburn-haired, brown-eyed composite of his parents, had been sent away, the embraces of both father and mother consoling him for his banishment to the arms of a coloured mammy. Coolidge thoroughly enjoyed the simple but appetizing dinner, of the sort he had known he should have as soon as he had met the mistress of the house. And after it he was borne away by Burns to the office.
"I have to go out again at once," the physician announced. "I'm going to take you with me. I suppose you have a distaste for the sight of illness, but that doesn't matter seriously. I want you to see this patient of mine."
"Thank you, but I don't believe that's necessary," responded Coolidge with a frown. "If Mrs. Burns is too busy to keep me company I'll sit here and read while you're out."
"No, you won't. If you consult a man you're bound to take his prescriptions. I'm telling you frankly, for you'd see through me if I pretended to take you out for a walk and then pulled you into a house. Be a sport, Cooly."
"Very well," replied the other man, suppressing his irritation. He was almost, but not quite, wishing he had not yielded to the unexplainable impulse which had brought him here to see a man who, as he should have known from past experience in college days, was as sure to be eccentric in his methods of practising his profession as he had been in the conduct of his life as a student.
The two went out into the winter night together, Coolidge remarking that the call must be a brief one, for his train would leave in a little more than an hour.
"It'll be brief," Burns promised. "It's practically a friendly call only, for there's nothing more I can do for the patient--except to see him on his way."
Coolidge looked more than ever reluctant. "I hope he's not just leaving the world?"
"What if he were--would that frighten you? Don't be worried; he'll not go to-night."
Something in Burns's tone closed his companion's lips. Coolidge resented it, and at the same time he felt constrained to let the other have his way. And after all there proved to be nothing in the sight he presently found himself witnessing to shock the most delicate sensibilities.
It was a little house to which Burns conducted his friend and latest patient; it was a low-ceiled, homely room, warm with lamplight and comfortable with the accumulations of a lifetime carefully preserved. In the worn, old, red-cushioned armchair by a glowing stove sat an aged figure of a certain dignity and attractiveness in spite of the lines and hues plainly showing serious illness. The man was a man of education and experience, as was evident from his first words in response to Burns's greeting.
"It was kind of you to come again to-night, Doctor. I suspect you know how it shortens the nights to have this visit from you in the evening."
"Of course I know," Burns responded, his hand resting gently on the frail shoulder, his voice as tender as that of a son's to a father whom he knows he is not long to see.
There was a woman in the room, an old woman with a pathetic face and eyes like a mourning dog's as they rested on her husband. But her voice was cheerful and full of quiet courage as she answered Burns's questions. The pair received Gardner Coolidge as simply as if they were accustomed to meet strangers every day, spoke with him a little, and showed him the courtesy of genuine interest when he tried to entertain them with