He rose as he spoke.
"Well, of all the positive gentlemen! Will you stay to look at one more? It may soften that austere mood."
Miss Ruston gave him a third print. It was of a very beautiful woman standing beside a window, the attitude apparently unstudied, the lighting unusual and picturesque, the whole effect challenging all conventional laws of photography.
"It's very nice—very nice," said Burns, indifferently. "But it's not in it with the old lady by the fire. I'll run across and make sure of her quarters, if you please."
"That will be wonderfully good of you," and the guest looked after her host, dubiously, as he went out.
"Does one have to do everything he says, in these parts?" she inquired, glancing from Mrs. Burns to Miss Mathewson, both of whom were smiling. Her own expression was an odd mixture of interest and rebellion.
Miss Mathewson spoke first. "I have been his surgical assistant for more than nine years," said she. "When I have ventured to depart from the line he laid out for me I have—been very sorry, afterward."
"Did you ever venture to depart very far?"
"Do I look so meek?"
"You don't look meek at all, but you do look—conscientious." Miss Ruston gave her a daring look.