He set down the instrument with soft precision then, on the sounds of a woman’s sobs. The next instant he was out in his reception office, his hat jammed under one arm, thrusting his letters into the two pockets of his coat, and looking for Miss Frazier. Petra had no existence for him now. She had been wiped from his consciousness by the bitter news he had just received, without need of a struggle after all. Miss Frazier got up from the chair she had drawn close to Petra’s while she taught her the use of the telephone switchboard, ready for his demands.
“I’m catching the New York Express. Michael Duffield’s got infantile paralysis. He wants me. Stephens is on the case. That gives the kid every chance. I’ll call you up to-night if there’s anything to tell. Doctor Cotsworth will have to take the clinic to-morrow. Give him the dope on the Pettis case pretty carefully. It’s in the file. Tell Doctor Hagar I’ll call him long distance at four this afternoon and to stay in for it. He’ll have to handle that Arlington business without me. Put the private patients off by telephone. But you’ll have to send a message to McCloud, of course. Give him an appointment for Saturday afternoon. The others will have to wait for appointments till we know when I’ll be back. But before you do anything get in touch with the hospital—” But he broke off. “This is nonsense. There isn’t time. Grab your hat, bring your book. We’ll finish in the taxi.”
He remembered the new assistant then and commanded, “Petra, get us a taxi and tell them it’s rush. Give her the number, Miss Frazier. I’ll get the elevator up.”
Miss Frazier followed the doctor out, not bothering about her hat, but her shorthand pad and her fountain pen were clutched in her hand, and she even had the presence of mind to snatch a pencil from Petra’s desk in case the pen ran dry. Petra got the promise from the taxi company that the car would be at the door in a minute and then went through to the doctor’s office to see whether they actually managed it. To her utter relief, a taxi drew up at the curb just as the doctor and Miss Frazier came out to it. Petra was exhilarated. So far, then, she was a success at this job. There had been no slip. She had been efficient.
Petra had worries enough—even anguish of a sort—to keep her from being radiantly happy over having a job. Yet it was a dream come true. A year ago, why, even this spring, she would have been radiantly happy. But then it needn’t have been a double job; she needn’t have lived at Green Doors and done the stepdaughter act evenings and holidays. She would have gone to stay with Teresa and they would really have lived. Such freedom, such self-respect, and happiness as would have been hers then! That was the way she had planned it, exhilarated by the very imagining. And now—how different—.
But suddenly Petra forgot brilliant might-have-beens, for her telephone was ringing! She flew. She slipped into her chair, knees under the desk, her spine very straight and businesslike, her eyes grave and listening.—“This is Doctor Pryne’s office.”—And whoever was at the other end of the wire must have known from the pure and winged quality of her voice that the person answering Doctor Pryne’s telephone was young, beautiful, and very much on the job.
“Ordinarily you and I must not tell each other, or discuss, things that come up in Doctor Pryne’s work,—not in terms of personalities, anyway. But Michael, of course, is different. He isn’t a ‘case.’ It is almost as if a child of Doctor Pryne’s had infantile paralysis. Why, it isn’t even almost. It is just the same, really. That’s why I’ve told you about Michael. It would be inhuman for you not to know, when Doctor Pryne returns, whether the boy is lost or saved—how he is feeling about it.”
The two girls were talking in Miss Frazier’s private office at the end of Petra’s first day. Petra had her Greta Garbo hat jammed down over her bright curls, ready to drive out to Green Doors with Dick Wilder, whose car was waiting down on Marlboro Street. She had just looked down from Miss Frazier’s window and seen it.
“I am so grateful you did tell me,” she assured the secretary. “And I am going to ask something. Would you call me up at Meadowbrook to-night—reversed charges—if you hear anything from New York? It’s as if I knew Michael himself now—from your telling.”
Two years ago, Michael’s grandmother had been brought to Doctor Pryne’s clinic. This was what Miss Frazier had just told Petra. The old lady was insane and had to be placed in an asylum. Trailing along with the neighbors who had taken it upon themselves to bring the poor creature to the clinic was the boy, Michael, aged nine, who now, without his grandmother, was alone and would also become a charge of the State. But Doctor Pryne had taken Michael home with him that night.