Part 15 (1/2)

”Does one have to do everything he says, in these parts?” she inquired, glancing from Mrs. Burns to Miss Mathewson, both of whom were smiling.

Her own expression was an odd mixture of interest and rebellion.

Miss Mathewson spoke first. ”I have been his surgical a.s.sistant for more than nine years,” said she. ”When I have ventured to depart from the line he laid out for me I have--been very sorry, afterward.”

”Did you ever venture to depart very far?”

”Do I look so meek?”

”You don't look meek at all, but you do look--conscientious.” Miss Ruston gave her a daring look.

Amy spoke with more spirit than the others had expected. ”If I were not conscientious I couldn't work for Dr. Burns.”

”He doesn't look conscientious, to me,” declared Miss Ruston. ”He looks adventurous, audacious, unexpected.”

”Perhaps he is. But he doesn't expect his a.s.sistant nurse to be adventurous, audacious, or unexpected!”

”Good for you!” Miss Ruston was laughing, and looking with newly roused interest at this young woman, whom she had perhaps taken to be of a more commonplace type than her words now indicated. ”As for my friend, Mrs. Burns--he is her husband, and she must have known what he was like, since I, in one short hour, have already discovered two or three of his characteristics! Well, here's hoping he's on my side, when he comes back.

If he's not--”

But when he came back he was on her side, reluctantly convinced by a painstaking examination of the possibilities in the old cottage, and by a man-to-man talk with its owner as to his good faith in promising to carry out the lessee's requirements.

”Though what in the name of time possesses a stunning girl like that to come here and shut herself up in Aunt Selina's old rookery, I can't make out,” the landlord, Burns's neighbour, had confessed.

”Possibly she won't shut herself up,” Burns had suggested, though he himself had been unable to discover the mysterious attraction of the little old house. The garden promised better, he thought. He could understand her being caught by the forsaken though powerful charm of that. Doubtless it would furnish backgrounds for her outdoor photography, which would put to blush any painted screens such as the village photographers were accustomed to use.

He returned to give Miss Ruston his sanction of her project, and to receive her half-mocking, wholly grateful acknowledgment.

”And I hope, Dr. Burns,” said she, as he took leave of her, his watch in his left hand as he shook hands with his right, ”that you will let me make that photograph of you, at the very beginning of my stay here.”

”With a clump of hollyhocks behind me, or a 'queer old door'?” he inquired.

”With nothing behind you except darkness and mystery,” said she.

”I thought those were the things one looked toward, not out of?”

”Your patients looking toward 'the black unknown,' and seeing your face, must find their future lighted with hope!”

He turned and looked at his wife, a sparkle in his eye. ”She's from the big town,” said he. ”Here in the country we don't know how to give fine, fascinating blarney like that, eh? Good-bye, Miss Ruston, and good luck. Bring the little grandmother carefully wrapped in jeweller's cotton--nothing is too good for her!”

When luncheon was over Mrs. Burns and her guest went off for a long drive, Miss Ruston being anxious to explore the region of which she had heard as offering a field for her camera. The drive, taken in the Macauley car, by Martha's invitation, and in the company of Martha herself, Winifred Chester, and several children, prevented much confidential talk between the two friends, and it was not until a few minutes before train time, at five o'clock, that the two were for a brief s.p.a.ce again alone together.

”I'm so sorry you are not to be here at dinner,” Ellen said, as Miss Ruston repacked her small travelling bag, while the car waited outside to take her to the station. ”I should have liked you to meet our guest, Dr.

Leaver. He is an old friend of my husband's, who has been ill and is here convalescing. He over-tired himself in taking a walk this morning, and has been resting in his room all the afternoon.”

Charlotte Ruston, adjusting a smart little veil before Ellen's mirror, her back to her friend, asked, after a moment's pause: