She regarded him as earnestly as if he had been the fount of all wisdom.
“How long does it usually last?” she asked.
“Last?” he repeated.
“The sentimental age. I suppose a girl ought to get through it by the time she is twenty. But I never do things on time. I didn't even know I was sentimental until you told me. I have learned a great many things since you came.”
“There were some things you did not need to learn,” said the Doctor quietly. “Kindness and sympathy, and rare understanding. I shall always look back with pleasure to these quiet weeks spent under your father's roof. They have given me the only chance I have had in years for undisturbed writing on the History that will stand for my life work. I must confess that I dread my return home. The noise and confusion, the constant invasion of my privacy, the demands upon my time, appal me. Very few realize the magnitude of my work, and the necessity it lays upon me for isolating myself. You have been singularly sympathetic and helpful in that respect.”
“But think what your being here has meant to me! You came into my life just when everything else seemed to drop out. You explained things to me, and gave me something to do. You can't begin to know how you have helped me.”
“I have only tried to direct and suggest,” the Doctor said; “in short to take the place—”
“Of a father,” finished Miss Lady enthusiastically.
The Doctor tapped his foot impatiently. After all her father was a much older man than he: the distance, at that moment, between forty and sixty seemed infinitely greater than that between forty and twenty.
“You see,” Miss Lady went on, unconsciously, “you have taken Daddy's place in so many ways that I have been depending on you for everything. It makes me awfully lonesome when I think of your leaving. Down here you have just belonged to Miss Wuster and me, and once you get back to town you will be the famous Doctor Queerington again and belong to everybody. I shan't dare write to you for fear I spell a word wrong.”