第10章

"I have n't lost confidence in you, Grace. I don't see how you can talk so. You can give me bread pills, if you like, or air pills, and I will take them gladly. I believe in you perfectly. But I do think that in a matter of this kind, where my health, and perhaps my life, is concerned, I ought to have a little say. I don't ask you to give up your principles, and I don't dream of giving you up, and yet you won't just to please me!--exchange a few words with another doctor about my case, merely because he's allopathic. I should call it bigotry, and I don't see how you can call it anything else." There was a sound of voices at the door outside, and she called cheerily, "Come in, Mr. Libby,--come in!

There's nobody but Grace here," she added, as the young man tentatively opened the door, and looked in. He wore an evening dress, even to the white cravat, and he carried in his hand a crush hat: there was something anomalous in his appearance, beyond the phenomenal character of his costume, and he blushed consciously as he bowed to Grace, and then at her motion shook hands with her. Mrs. Maynard did not give herself the fatigue of rising; she stretched her hand to him from the lounge, and he took it without the joy which he had shown when Grace made him the same advance. "How very swell you look. Going to an evening party this morning?" she cried; and after she had given him a second glance of greater intensity, "Why, what in the world has come over' you?" It was the dress which Mr. Libby wore. He was a young fellow far too well made, and carried himself too alertly, to look as if any clothes misfitted him; his person gave their good cut elegance, but he had the effect of having fallen away in them. "Why, you look as if you had been sick a month!"

Mrs. Maynard interpreted.

The young man surveyed himself with a downward glance. "They're Johnson's," he explained. "He had them down for a hop at the Long Beach House, and sent over for them. I had nothing but my camping flannels, and they have n't been got into shape yet, since yesterday. I wanted to come over and see how you were."

"Poor fellow!" exclaimed Mrs. Maynard. "I never thought of you! How in the world did you get to your camp?"

"I walked."

"In all that rain?"

"Well, I had been pretty well sprinkled, already. It was n't a question of wet and dry; it was a question of wet and wet. I was going off bareheaded, I lost my hat in the water, you know,--but your man, here, hailed me round the corner of the kitchen, and lent me one. I've been taking up collections of clothes ever since."

Mr. Libby spoke lightly, and with a cry of "Barlow's hat!" Mrs. Maynard went off in a shriek of laughter; but a deep distress kept Grace silent.

It seemed to her that she had been lacking not only in thoughtfulness, but in common humanity, in suffering him to walk away several miles in the rain, without making an offer to keep him and have him provided for in the house. She remembered now her bewildered impression that he was without a hat when he climbed the stairs and helped her to the house; she recalled the fact that she had thrust him on to the danger he had escaped, and her heart was melted with grief and shame. "Mr. Libby"--she began, going up to him, and drooping before him in an attitude which simply and frankly expressed the contrition she felt; but she could not continue. Mrs. Maynard's laugh broke into the usual cough, and as soon as she could speak she seized the word.

"Well, there, now; we can leave it to Mr. Libby. It's the principle of the thing that I look at. And I want to see how it strikes him. I want to know, Mr. Libby, if you were a doctor,"--he looked at Grace, and flushed, --"and a person was very sick, and wanted you to consult with another doctor, whether you would let the mere fact that you had n't been introduced have any weight with you?" The young man silently appealed to Grace, who darkened angrily, and before he could speak Mrs. Maynard interposed. "No, no, you sha'n't ask her. I want your opinion. It's just an abstract question." She accounted for this fib with a wink at Grace.

"Really," he said, "it's rather formidable. I've never been a doctor of any kind."

"Oh, yes, we know that!" said Mrs. Maynard. "But you are now, and now would you do it?"

"If the other fellow knew more, I would."

"But if you thought he did n't?"

"Then I wouldn't. What are you trying to get at, Mrs. Maynard? I'm not going to answer any more of your questions."

"Yes,--one more. Don't you think it's a doctor's place to get his patient well any way he can?"

"Why, of course!"

"There, Grace! It's just exactly the same case. And ninety-nine out of a hundred would decide against you every time."

Libby turned towards Grace in confusion. "Miss Breen--I did n't understand--I don't presume to meddle in anything--You're not fair, Mrs.

Maynard ! I have n't any opinion on the subject, Miss Breen; I haven't, indeed!"

"Oh, you can't back out, now!" exclaimed Mrs. Maynard joyously. "You've said it."

"And you're quite right, Mr. Libby," said Grace haughtily. She bade him good-morning; but he followed her from the room, and left Mrs. Maynard to her triumph.

"Miss Breen--Do let me speak to you, please! Upon my word and honor, I didn't know what she was driving at; I did n't, indeed! It's pretty rough on me, for I never dreamt of setting myself up as a judge of your affairs. I know you're right, whatever you think; and I take it all back; it was got out of me by fraud, any way. And I beg your pardon for not calling you Doctor--if you want me to do it. The other comes more natural; but I wish to recognize you in the way you prefer, for I do feel most respectul--reverent--"