"It doesn't matter in the least. I shall enjoy sitting here," his wife responded, still outwardly unruffled by his manner. She looked in vain for his customary glance of leave-taking, and watched him stride away up the walk to the house with a sense of wonder that even his back could somehow look so aggressive.
She had not more than settled herself when a handsome roadster appeared rushing rapidly down the road from the direction of the city and came to a stop, facing her, before the house. She recognized in the well-groomed figure which stepped out, case in hand, one of the city surgeons with whom her husband was often closely associated in his hospital work, Dr. Van Horn. He was a decade older than Red, possessed a strikingly impressive personality, and looked, to the last detail, like a man accustomed to be deferred to.
Descending, he caught sight of Ellen, and came across to the Imp, hat in hand, and motoring-glove withdrawn.
"Ah, Mrs. Burns,—accompanying your husband on this matchless morning? He is a fortunate man. You don't mind the waiting? My wife thinks there is nothing so unendurable,—she has no patience with the length of my calls."
"I've not had much experience, as yet," Ellen replied, looking into the handsome, middle-aged face before her, and thinking that the smile under the close-clipped, iron-gray moustache was one which could be cynical more easily than it could be sympathetic. "But, so far, I find the waiting, in such weather, very endurable. I often bring a book, and then it never matters, you know."
"Of course not. You are familiar with Balzac's 'Country Doctor'? There's a tribute to men like your husband, who devote their lives to the humble folk." He glanced toward the house. "I mustn't keep my colleague waiting, even for the pleasure of a chat with you. He's not—you'll pardon me—so good a waiter as yourself!"
He went away, smiling. Ellen looked after him with a little frown of displeasure. From the first moment of meeting him, some months ago, she had not liked Dr. James Van Horn. He was the city's most fashionable surgeon, she knew, and had a large practice among folk the reverse of "humble." She had seen in his eyes that he liked to look at her, and knew that in the moment he had stood beside her he had lost no detail of her face. He had also, after some subtle fashion, managed to express his admiration by his own look, though with his smoothly spoken words he had not hesitated to say a thing about her husband which was at once somehow a compliment and a stab.
"I can't imagine Dr. Van Horn taking much pains with 'humble folk,'" Ellen said to herself. "Yet he's evidently consulting with Red at this house, which doesn't seem exactly a 'humble' abode. I wonder if they get on well together. They're certainly not much alike."
The wait proved to be a long one. Ellen had studied her surroundings with thoroughness in every direction before the house-door opened at last, and the two men came down the walk together. They were talking earnestly as they came, and at a point some yards away they ceased to advance, and stood still, evidently in tense discussion over the case just left. They spoke in the low tones customary with men of their profession, and their words did not reach Ellen's ears. But it was not difficult to recognize, as she watched their faces, that they were differing, and differing radically, on the matter in hand.
They had turned to face each other, and neither looked her way, so it was possible for Ellen to study the two without fear of intrusion. They made an interesting study, certainly. Dr. Van Horn's face was impassive as to the play of his features, except that he smiled, from time to time,—a smile which bore out Ellen's previous feeling concerning its possibilities for cynicism rather than sympathy. His eyes, however, steely blue and cold in their expression, told more than his face of antagonism to the man with whom he spoke. But his command of manner, to the outward observer, who could not hear his words, was perfect.