"What do you want to know?" said Lucas.
He was lying in bed with the spring sunshine full upon him. His eyes were drawn a little. He had just undergone a lengthy examination at the hands of the great doctor.
"Many things," said Capper, somewhat snappishly. "Chief among them, why your tomfool brother—you call him your brother, I suppose?—brought me over here on a fool's errand."
"He is my brother," said Lucas quietly. "And why a fool's errand? Is there something about my case you don't like?"
"There is nothing whatever," said Capper, with an exasperated tug at his pointed beard. "I could make a sound man of you. It wouldn't be easy. But I could do it—given one thing, which I shan't get. Is the sun bothering you?"
He suddenly left his chair, bent over and with infinite gentleness raised his patient to an easier posture and drew forward the curtain.
"I guess I won't talk to you now," he said. "I've given you as much as you can stand and then some already. How's that? Is it comfort?"
"Absolute," Lucas said with a smile. "Don't go, doctor. I am quite able to talk. I suppose matters haven't altered very materially since you saw me last?"
"I don't see why you should suppose that," said Capper. "As a matter of fact things have altered—altered considerably. Say, you don't have those fainting attacks any more?"
"No. I've learnt not to faint." There was a boyishly pathetic note about the words though the lips that uttered them still smiled.