"I can't go now, Hen. It's impossible. Thank you just the same."
He spoke quite irritably, for him, and Hen, having had this subject up more than once before, desisted and turned to go.
"Well, take some sort of care of yourself, V.V.," she said from the door. "Don't be a goose. And, by the way, be very gentle with your little friend Corinne. You know she thinks you put up the moon."
V.V. had meant to be gentle with Corinne, but in the light of this remark he resolved to be gentler still. He sat for ten minutes in abstraction after Henrietta had gone; and then, rising abruptly, picked up the chart, went down the long hall, pushed aside the light green curtain that swung in front of a door, and passed into the sick-room.
Kern lay alone with her geraniums, awning, whirring fan, and other ladylike appurtenances. Mr. V.V. sat down by the white iron bed and introduced a thermometer into her mouth. He possessed himself of her wrist, took out his silver watch and presently wrote something on the chart. He took out the thermometer and again jotted upon the chart. Then he gave the patient two tablespoonfuls of peptonoids. All this in silence. And then Kern said in a whimpering little voice:
"Mr. V.V., I'm so hongry."
"I know it, poor child. Just a little more patience now: you're going to begin to get better right away, and before you know it you'll be sitting down to the finest dinners that ever you popped into your mouth. Ring the bell and order what you like--stuff, stuff, stuff--banquets all day long. And that reminds me," said he, hurrying away from this too toothsome subject--"your holiday, as soon as you feel strong enough to travel. It's high time we were making pretty definite plans about that. The question is, what sort of place do you think you'd like to go to?"
"Oh!... Do you mean--any place--go to any place I like?"
"Any place in the world," replied Mr. V.V., the magnificent.
Kern thought for some time, her eyes on the window, and then said: