he drew his chair in front of herman medfield, leaning forward a little, with his elbows on his knees.

"find it hard, do you?" he asked pleasantly.

"i've known easier things," replied herman medfield dryly.

the doctor regarded him without comment. he reached out a hand to his pulse and took out his watch and sat with bent head a minute. then he slipped the watch back into his pocket and stood up.

"i'd like to put you on that couch a few minutes," he said. "that's right—over there." he rolled up the window-shades and moved the couch nearer to the window. herman medfield lay down, half grudgingly.

"now, if you will relax and breathe easily—" the doctor's face had grown absorbed. he seemed not to see herman medfield, but something that might have been an abstraction—the[pg 70] essence, or spirit, of medfield. and while he gazed at this medfield abstraction, dr. carmon's hands were busy. they thumped the liver and sounded the heart and pounded the back of herman medfield with quick, absorbed movements that left no depth unsounded.

"um-m!" he said at last.

and then—"ah!"

he straightened his back and beamed down on herman medfield from behind the spectacles.

"all right—am i?" asked medfield.

"you'll be all right—in three or four days," responded dr. carmon, with his round, successful diagnosis smile.

"you won't have to operate?" medfield's face lighted.

"operate—? oh—! yes—i shall operate." the doctor spoke absently. it was the tone of one to whom it could never occur not to operate. "i shall operate. it's fine!"

"better than you thought?" asked medfield hopefully.

the doctor's absent-minded gaze broke. he smiled. "worse! much worse than i[pg 71] thought. you could not live three months—as you are."

herman medfield sat up.

dr. carmon surveyed him proudly. "and in three months you'll be a new man—made over—top to toe!"

"when do you operate?" asked medfield a little dryly.

"um—this is wednesday? yes—about friday, then." he got up. "there is something i want you to do meantime." he rang for the nurse and called for a roll of bandage.

when she brought it, he asked her to send aunt jane to suite a.

"do you know where she is?" he asked.

"in the children's ward, i think," said miss canfield.

"very well. ask her to come. i want her to have special charge of this brace for me."

he turned back to the window. "now, if i may have you here. i want to take measurements, please."

the man stood straight as a tailor's dummy while the surgeon's hands flitted over and around him. the tall figure outlined against[pg 72] the window had a singular grace and charm; and the short, square one moving jerkily around it, taking measurements and jotting down figures had an added absurdity from the contrast.... now, dr. carmon was on his hands and knees on the floor; and now, stretching tiptoe to pass a tape-measure over the tall, thin shoulders of the aristocratic figure.

it was thus that aunt jane saw the two men as she opened the door. she stood for a moment in the doorway. then she closed the door and came in.

but between the opening of the door and the closing it, she had seen for the first time dr. carmon as he really was—a homely and grotesque and brusque little man. it added, perhaps, a touch of severity to the expression of the round face and its crisp cap strings.

he looked up quickly from his thumb that marked a place on the tape-measure, and glanced from one to the other.

"you know mr. medfield?" he said.

"i met mr. medfield when he came—yesterday," said aunt jane safely.

"yes, we have become acquainted," rejoined[pg 73] herman medfield, with a little polite gesture of the hand.

aunt jane's face was non-committal.

dr. carmon turned to it. "i want a brace made—for temporary use. here are the measurements. be sure to give it plenty of room here—and here." he drew a few lines and jotted down the figures and handed the paper to her.

she received it in silence.

the millionaire stood at his ease, smiling at her. he did not look like a man condemned to die in three months. his eye was keen and there was a little line of firmness under the smile of his lips.

"i want to see my lawyer," he said. "i will go to my office in the morning. there are things to arrange."

dr. carmon paused abruptly. "i thought you attended to all that before you came." his tone was brusque. "i told you——"

"i did not understand," said the millionaire quietly. "i did not think you knew." he looked at him.

"well—of course—if you have to—" dr. carmon's gaze was reluctant and his brow[pg 74] puckered itself.... standing beside the millionaire and looking up at him with the puckered forehead, he may have seemed an awkward and fussy and ineffectual little man.

"he can't go!" it was aunt jane's voice, prompt and decisive—and the two men turned and looked at her.

"he can't go," she repeated calmly. "he's got to have this on." she motioned to the paper she held in her hand. "he's got to have it on right away and go to bed."

"but—" said herman medfield.

"you can't go to bed and go to an office, too," replied aunt jane firmly.

the millionaire looked at her. his glance travelled to dr. carmon's face. there was the merest hint of a twinkle behind the round professional glasses, and herman medfield regarded it.

"do i understand that this is your order?" he asked politely.

"it's better for you—not—to wait," admitted dr. carmon slowly.

"you mean i'm taking chances?"

"yes."

the millionaire's glance fell. "very well.[pg 75] i shall do as you say, of course." he moved a little away and sat down.

aunt jane's glance followed him—the look in it changed subtly. something that had been in it up in the children's ward came back.

"you can have your lawyer here," she said almost kindly. "we've got plenty of pens and paper and ink. and you can tell him all you want to without going to any office, i guess. now i'll go get this made for you; and you be ready to have it on when i come back."

she opened the door and went out.

the two men looked at each other like two boys—and smiled. both boys had had mothers. herman medfield's mother had worn a cap, an aristocratic affair of ribbons and lace that had little relation to the clear-starched whiteness of aunt jane's muslin strings; dr. carmon's mother had never known what it was to cover her smooth-parted hair under a cap—she had been a hard-working woman and far removed from mrs. oliver medfield's way of life. but the two men, as they watched aunt jane disappear, had a sudden common sense of motherly protection and wisdom; and they smiled across to[pg 76] each other in almost shamefaced understanding.

"it really is better not to wait—" said the doctor, half apologetically: "it might be all right. but we're taking chances enough as it is—without that."

the professional look had come back to his face. he was looking absently before him at something unseen.