“I would remove the cause of the disease.”
She came close and looked him straight in the eyes. “You mean that he should go? You think that would cure the disease? Well, you are not going to interfere. You are not going to manoeuvre anything to get him away—I know doctors’ tricks. You’d say he must go away east or west to the sea for change of air to get well. That’s nonsense, and it isn’t necessary. You are absolutely wrong in your diagnosis—if that’s what you call it. He is going to stay here. You aren’t going to drive away one of our boarders and take the bread out of our mouths. Anyhow, you’re wrong. You think because a girl worships a man’s ability that she’s in love with him. I adore your ability, but I’d as soon fall in love with a lobster—and be boiled with the lobster in a black pot. Such conceit men have!”
He was not convinced. He had a deep-seeing eye, and he saw that she was boldly trying to divert his belief or suspicion. He respected her for it. He might have said he loved her for it—with a kind of love which can be spoken of without blushing or giving cause to blush, or reason for jealousy, anger, or apprehension.
He smiled down into her gold-brown eyes, and he thought what a real woman she was. He felt, too, that she would tell him something that would give him further light if he spoke wisely now.
“I’d like to see some proof that you are right, if I am wrong,” he answered cautiously.
“Well, I’m going to be married,” she said, with an air of finality.
He waved a hand deprecatingly. “Impossible—there’s no man worth it. Who is the undeserving wretch?”
“I’ll tell you to-morrow,” she replied. “He doesn’t know yet how happy he’s going to be. What did you come here for? Why did you want to see me?” she added. “You had something you were going to tell me. Hadn’t you?”
“That’s quite right,” he replied. “It’s about Crozier. This is my last visit to him professionally. He can go on now without my care. Yours will be sufficient for him. It has been all along the very best care he could have had. It did more for him than all the rest, it—”
“You don’t mean that,” she interrupted, with a flush and a bosom that leaped under her pretty gown. “You don’t mean that I was of more use than the nurse—than the future Mrs. Jesse Bulrush?”