“I don’t blame him for that!”
“But he’ll have to some time, and—oh, Felix! I wish we could tell him, and mother, soon! It makes me feel so underhanded, and it mars my happiness, just a little, darling. Don’t you think it would be better to face the music and have it over with?”
The sound of Dr. Annister’s voice dismissing a patient came to their ears and she sprang out of his embrace. “No, no! don’t whisper a word of it,” he hastily adjured her. “We must wait a little while longer. Remember what I say.” There was a touch of impatience, almost of roughness, in his tone as he spoke the last words that made her turn wondering eyes upon him for an instant. But her father was opening the door into his consulting room and now came forward with an outstretched hand. She put her arm through her lover’s and walked with him into the office.
“This naughty boy has been working too hard, father,” she said gaily, “and he has that tired feeling. I think you’d better prescribe a six months’ rest and a trip around the world!”
She was smiling persuasively at her father and did not see the look of irritation that leaped into Brand’s eyes as he turned them suddenly upon her. Then he laughingly shook his head, saying:
“It would be a bigger dose than I could swallow, I’m afraid. I have too many contracts on my hands now to be able to take any such French leave as that.”
“Anyway, father,” she insisted as she moved toward the door and, from behind the doctor’s back, threw her lover a kiss, “you must tell him not to overwork himself, as he’s been doing lately.”
“Well, Felix, what is it? What’s the trouble?” said the little physician kindly, as he sank back into the depths of his capacious arm-chair.
But the architect was ill at ease. He sprang up from the chair where he had just seated himself and began walking back and forth in the narrow space. His whole soul was in rebellion against the confession he had come there to make.
“Perhaps you will remember, Dr. Annister,” he began, broke off, stopped to wipe his brow, then stumbled on: “It was here in your office—you will remember, when I recall it to you—some time ago, you told me—you asked me about—certain things, and urged me to come to you—if at any time I felt I needed your help.”