"It's such a horrid day," he said. "And you look so wet and cold, perhaps a taste of coffee wouldn't come in altogether amiss. But it's these rusks that I'm really interested in. I want you to bite down hard on them. And then presently perhaps I will ask you to sing so that I may watch the—Oh, by the way," he interrupted himself irrelevantly. "I neglected, I think, to ask your name."
"My name," said the girl, "is Kendrue."
"What?" questioned the Young Doctor. "Why that is my name," he smiled.
"Yes, I know," murmured the girl. "Coincidences of that sort are certainly very strange. It was one of the first things my aunt spoke of when I asked her advice about what physician to go to. I am a comparative stranger in the city," she added a bit shiveringly. "But didn't my aunt tell you I was 92coming?" she quickened suddenly. "Didn't my aunt, Mrs. Tome Gallien, write you—or something—that I was coming?"
"Mrs. Tome Gallien?" jumped the Young Doctor. Chaotically through his senses quickened a dozen new angers, a dozen new resentments. A girl? So this was Mrs. Tome Gallien's threatened "Adventure," was it? Of all the spiteful possibilities in the world, now wasn't this just like the amiable lady in question to foist another girl into a situation quite sufficiently embarrassed with "girl" as it was! "Is—is Mrs. Tome Gallien your—aunt?" he demanded with such sudden stentorious sternness that even the most bona fide blood-relation would hardly have acquiesced without pausing an instant to reconsider the matter.
"Well, not of course, not exactly a real aunt," admitted the girl. "But I have always called her my aunt. We have always been very intimate. Or rather perhaps I should say she had always been very, very kind to me. And now, since my father—" With the unmistakable air of one who strives suddenly to suppress an almost overwhelming emotion she pointed irrelevantly to the piano and waved 93off the plate of rusks and the cup of coffee which the Young Doctor still stood proffering. "You must excuse me if I—if I—seem distrait," she stammered. "But in addition to the very real annoyance that this little pain in my jaw is giving me I am—I am so bewildered about that piano! Where did you get it?" she asked quite bluntly.
"Why it came from Such-and-Such warerooms I believe," admitted the Young Doctor with as much frankness as he could summon at the moment.
With a little soft sigh the girl reached out and touched the dark, gleaming woodwork.
"I thought so," she whispered. "And—oh, how you must love it! It is certainly the most beautiful instrument that I ever saw in my life! The most melodious, I mean! The most nearly perfect sounding-board! An utter miracle of tone and flexibility as an accompanist to the human voice!"
"U—m—mmmm," said the Young Doctor.