Capper nodded comprehendingly. "But the pain is just as infernal, eh? Only you've the grit to stand against it. Remember the last time I overhauled you? You fainted twice. That's how I knew you would never face it. But I've hurt you worse to-day, and I'm damned if I know how you managed to come up smiling."
"Then why do you surmise that you have been brought here on a fool's errand?" Lucas asked.
"I don't surmise," said Capper. "I never surmise. I know." He began to crack his fingers impatiently, and presently fell to whistling below his breath. "No," he said suddenly, "you've got the physical strength and you've got the spunk to lick creation, but what you haven't got is zeal. You're gallant enough, Heaven knows, but you are not keen. You are passive, you are lethargic. And you ought to be in a fever!"
His fingers dropped abruptly upon Lucas's wrist, and tightened upon it. "That brother of yours that you're so fond of, now if it were he, I could pull him out of the very jaws of hell. He'd catch and hold. But you—you are too near the other place to care. Say, you don't care, do you, not a single red cent? It's all one to you—under Providence—whether you live or die. And if I operated on you to-morrow you'd die—not at once, but sooner or later—from sheer lack of enthusiasm. That's my difficulty. It's too long a business. You would never keep it up."
Lucas did not immediately reply. He lay in the stillness habitual to him, gazing with heavy eyes at the motes that danced in the sunshine.
"I guess I'm too old, doctor," he said at last. "But you are wrong in one sense. I do care. I don't want to die at present."
"Private reasons?" demanded Capper keenly.
"Not particularly. You see, I am the head of the family. I hold myself responsible. My brothers want looking after, more or less."
"Brothers!" sniffed Capper, with supreme contempt. "That consideration wouldn't keep you out of heaven. It's only another reason for holding back."
"Exactly," Lucas said quietly. "I don't know what Nap will say to me. He will call me a shirker. But on the whole, doctor, I think I must hold back a little longer."