“A surgeon?” demurred Rachel softly, from over her steaming dishpan.
“Thank you, Miss Redding,” said the doctor, smiling.
“Ah, how stupid of me,” Juliet made amends swiftly. “Miss Redding remembers that when I got my telephone message to-night I told her that the most distinguished young specialist in the city was coming here to dinner. A hand trained to such delicate tasks as those of surgery—here, Dr. Roger Barnes, forgive me, and wipe my most precious goblets.”
“You’ll have my nerves unsteady with such speeches as that,” said he, but he accepted the trust. He held the goblets and the other daintily cut and engraved pieces of glass with evident pleasure in the task.
Meanwhile Juliet and Rachel made rapid work of the greater part of the dishes, handling thin china with the dexterity of housewives who love their work—and their china. Talk and laughter flowed brightly through it all, and when the doctor had finished his glass he looked disappointed at seeing not much left to do. At the moment Rachel was scrubbing and scraping a big baking-dish, portions of whose surface strongly resisted her efforts, in spite of previous soaking. The assistant, looking about him for new worlds to conquer, fell upon this dish.
“Here, here,” said he, “let me have it. I’ll use on it some of the unconscious strength Mrs. Robeson credits me with.”
But Rachel clung to the dish. “Proper housekeepers,” she averred, “always say ‘That’s all, thank you,’ as soon as the china is done, and finish the pots and kettles after the guest has gone back to pleasanter things.”
“I see. Did you ever have a man for dish-wiper before?”
“Never a surgeon,” admitted Miss Redding.
“Then you don’t appreciate the fact that a man likes to do big things which make the most show and get the credit for them.”