“Doctor Burns—”
“Yes, Miss Mathewson.”
“The long-distance telephone, please.”
Burns excused himself to the last patient of the evening series, and shut himself in with the long-distance. When he came out he was looking at his watch. From its face he turned to that of his office nurse—the one hardly less businesslike in expression than the other.
“Miss Mathewson, my aunt telephones that my father and mother are both sick, each anxious to distraction about the other, she about them both, and under the weather herself. If you and I can catch the ten-fifteen to-night we can be there by two, and by leaving there at four we can be back here in time for the morning's operations. If they need you I'll leave you there for a day or two—by your leave. We'll take the Green Imp into the city—the ten-fifteen doesn't stop here. Then it'll be at the hospital when we want it in the morning. You've twenty minutes to get ready.”
“Very well, Doctor Burns.”
The office bell rang. Burns fled toward the inner office. Miss Mathewson discovered the guest of the Chesters on the doorstep—all in white, with a face which usually stimulated interest wherever it was seen.
“May I see Doctor Burns just a minute—for Mr. Chester?” The caller took her cue cleverly from Miss Mathewson's face, which at the moment expressed schedules and engagements thick as blackberries in August. Burns, just closing the inner door, caught Chester's name. He pulled off his white office coat, slid into his gray tweed one, and opened the door.
“What can I do for Mr. Chester—in three minutes?” he inquired, coming forward. Miss Mathewson, aware of the shortness of time, vanished.
“Give me something for his headache, please,” replied the young person in white promptly. Schedules and engagements were in R. P. Burns's eyes also; they looked at her without appearing to see her at all. To this she was not accustomed and it displeased her.