“A call. A patient—the owner of a yacht out in the harbor somewhere.”
Eva made a delighted gesture, beaming suddenly.
“I declined, of course,” he added. “I referred them to another physician. I’m not practicing in Mobile.”
“But you might—you could—you’re qualified!” Eva exclaimed, bitterly disappointed. “You must be mad! A yachtsman—likely a millionaire! They’ve heard of your reputation even here.”
“But I tell you I don’t want to practice in Mobile, or in any of these towns!” Lang exclaimed, again in sudden irritation. “I dare say they have heard of me. The doctors here know my name, and I don’t want to face their sympathy for my comedown. I had enough of that in Boston—the men who had always hated me, been jealous of me, coming with their crocodile sympathy, hoping that I’d soon be fit again, and praying that they’d seen the last of me. I’d sooner bury myself, as you say.”
He checked himself, quivering, angry and ashamed at his lack of control. Sick nerves know no reason. He looked at Eva Morrison again, wondering once more how she had come so deeply into his confidence, this girl of twenty, pretty as a picture, indeed, looking at him now with grieved brown eyes. But he had known her less than a month, and what could she understand, after all?
She had been a passenger on the steamer that he boarded at Boston for Mobile. He had not remembered her at first; he did not want to know anybody; but in the inevitable companionship of shipboard she reminded him of past acquaintance. She had been a patient of his; he had treated her for some slight injury received in playing basket ball at the girls’ college she attended, and he had met her afterward at somebody’s house.
She had made no impression upon him, but somehow they drifted together in that six-day voyage, more and more together as the steamer rounded Florida and the air grew warmer and they came into the Gulf seas. She had heard of his breakdown, as he gathered; but it was not spoken of between them until afterward, in Mobile.
He had a dim impression that she was to wait in Mobile for relatives from the North who were to join her there; and Lang stopped there because he did not know where else to go. He had no plans, but it was imperative to make some at once. He thought at times of becoming a ship’s surgeon, then of retreating into the upriver woods and he came by degrees to talk over these plans with Eva, and so by degrees they arrived at this extraordinary pitch of intimacy.
A week passed, and her relatives did not arrive. She had established herself at the quiet Iberville Hotel, and Lang saw her almost daily, and often twice a day. They motored, boated together, went to the movies, dined out. Lang was by no means in love. Standing in the wreck of all his life he was far from even thinking of love, but Eva was restful and comforting and she soothed his tortured nerves and his tormented spirit.