Burnham’s recovery was extraordinary. On the third day after the crisis the doctor refused jovially to waste more time in visiting him—the nurse had been dismissed the day before—and told him to eat, talk and do as he pleased, short of getting up.
“I think,” observed Stacey that afternoon, “that I’ll pull out to-night on the midnight. You’re as fit as ever, Burnham.”
He was, indeed, restless and anxious to go. Here, sitting near Burnham, chatting casually of trivial things, he was strangely at peace; but an increasing turmoil that he felt in the city each evening exasperated him.
The man looked at him wistfully, then across at his wife. “Gerty,” he said, “you go out with the kids for a little while, will you? I got to talk to the Captain.”
She obeyed, but her face had flushed and her eyes were resentful.
“Now you’ve done it!” said Stacey cheerfully. “Fat lot of popularity I’ll have with Gertrude from now on!”
Burnham laughed. “Funny thing, ain’t it, Captain?” he observed. “They can’t seem to get onto it at all, women can’t. They go and get jealous, like Gerty now.”
“Can’t get onto what?”
“Why, this—this here what-do-you-call-it.”
“Relationship?”