Barnes smiled. It was something of an ironical smile.
“If one had the right point of view,” he remarked, “there are several things a man might think a good joke here.”
“And you,” answered the doctor with a good-natured grin, “are that man, I should say.”
“Perhaps.”
“Thank God it’s your type of man who’s playing this game,” concluded the doctor.
It was three days before Barnes was allowed to see Miss Van Patten. On the whole they were three of the most uncomfortable days he ever passed. The father demanded more and more of his time and succeeded, whether deliberately or not, in a pretty form of torture. He pressed him harder in his questioning both about Alaska and about Carl and never withdrew from his face those closed eyes which still seemed at times to flicker as though opened the tiniest crack. But that may have been pure imagination. There are holy images which if one gazes long enough upon them appear to move their eyes.
Between his visits to the father Barnes made at least one daily pilgrimage to Dr. Merriweather’s for a short talk with Carl. Here again he submitted to another kind of torture. Barnes understood Langdon as no one else on earth understood him, and this invited from the latter the frankest kind of confidence. He listened and he suffered.
Back in the house again, he must needs repeat to Aunt Philomela the greater part of his talk with Langdon.
“The dear boy!” she once exclaimed, “Eleanor is under very great obligations to him.”
“Very great,” answered Barnes. “He saved her life.”