“Oh, why? When Red's excited over a big success he's simply off his head—there's no knowing what he won't do.”
“I prefer him when he has his head. Don't urge, Martha. I've promised to go in the morning with Pauline, and nothing could make me change.”
“It's a shame for him to be so absorbed. Who wants a man who can forget the existence of a woman like that?”
“Who wants one who can't? A sorry surgeon he'd be—his hand would shake. Don't talk about it any more, dear. I'm going to enjoy this evening with you all. And I hope—oh, how I hope—that operation will be a success!”
If it were not to be a success it would not be the fault of the man who worked till one o'clock—two o'clock—three o'clock it the morning to perfect the strangely convoluted tool which was to help “do the trick” if it could be done. Part of the work was done in the laboratory, part in the machine shop which occupied a corner of the old red barn, where the Green Imp lent her lamps as aids to the task in hand. At four, the instrument finished, sterilized, and put away as if it were worth its weight in gold—which it might easily have been if it were to prove fitted to the peculiar need—Burns went to bed. At six he was up again, had a cold plunge and a hearty breakfast, and at seven was sending the Imp out of the gateway, his office nurse beside him. If Mrs. Lessing hoped the operation would be a success, Miss Mathewson hoped and feared and longed with all her soul. Beneath the uniform and behind the quiet, plain face of the young woman who had been R. P. Burns's professional assistant for eight years, lived a person than whom none cared more how things went with him. But nobody knew that least of all Burns himself. He only knew that he could not get on without her; that never a suture that she had prepared made trouble for him after an operation: and that none other of the hundred nice details upon which the astounding results of modern surgery depend was likely to go wrong if it were she who was responsible.
At five o'clock that afternoon the Green Imp came back. Arthur Chester had just returned from the office and had thrown himself into a hammock on the porch, for the September weather was like that of June. Catching the throbbing purr of the Imp as the car swung in at the driveway Chester jumped up. Burns flung out a triumphant arm; Miss Mathewson was smiling.
“By George, the old boy's won out!” Chester said to himself, and hurried down to meet the Imp. “All over but the shouting, Red?” he questioned eagerly.
“All over.” Burns's face was aflame.
“Pull up and tell me about it.”
The car came to a standstill. “Nothing to tell. The curve I got on that bit of steel did the work, around the corner and inside out. The fellows said it wouldn't; stood around and croaked for an hour beforehand. Lord! I'd have died myself before I'd have failed after that.”