“It is a night,” stated he, “for being outdoors. As a matter of fact, any night, or any day, are excellent for that purpose. The warm-blooded animal requires great quantities of those forces which the air holds for his use; and to get them he must go where it is. Otherwise he’ll be ill.”
“That sounds like a very good argument,” observed Bat, calmly.
“As a rule,” stated the doctor, and he regarded Bat through his lenses, “my patients resent the idea of outdoors. They look at it askance. There is the suggestion of hardship in the mere idea. They want to be coddled in a room full of poisonous vapours.” Still he looked at the big man fixedly; then he continued, “You are not of sickly habit, I think, and so you require no urging to take the air.”
“Not a bit,” replied Scanlon. “To-night, as a matter of fact,” his mind running back to the words of Kretz, “I was strongly urged to stay indoors.”
The drawn man coughed; he looked extremely fragile in the pale light; his face was bloodless, and his eyes had a feverish glint.
“In the main, the doctor is correct in his observations,” said he. “But for all, I can’t help thinking there are times when one should stay inside.”
Bat waited a moment, expecting a protest from the physician; but none came; that gentleman was engaged with the moonlit landscape.
“And such times?” asked Bat. “Just what are they like?”
The drawn man wiped his lips, and his thin, bowed shoulders shrugged.
“Perhaps one’s own discretion is best as to that,” said he, mildly. “But, for the sake of an example, a skipper does not venture to sea in the face of a storm; a mountaineer keeps from the passes in the season of snows; a careful man does not force his way into those things which do not concern him.”