"Why, take me to the circus."
He looked at me a moment, then looked at his watch and hesitated. "I hate to," he said, "but I don't see anything else to be done." So we started off again.
Fortunately the performance was nearly over when we got there, for it was the last night and everything was cut delightfully short, so I decided that I would rather stay out in the machine for that length of time, and watch the crowds swarm out to the street-cars than to be mixed up more closely with them.
Alfred drove up under a big arc-light and halted at the end of a long string of automobiles and carriages.
"You'll not be afraid here—and I'll be back as soon as I can," he said as he left me.
I pulled the rug up over me and reached back for a magazine I had brought, but the unsteady light on the printed pages soon caused my eyes to hurt, so I laid the book down again and gave myself up to the misery of just plain waiting.
After what seemed hours to me Alfred sent a little negro boy to the car with the message that I was to empty out his largest instrument case and send it to him.
"Maybe they have compromised on part money and a few baby lions," I mused, as I leaned back and gave myself up to another period of waiting.
I once heard Ann Lisbeth say that the only medical attention a doctor's wife ever gets is a sample bottle of iron tonic hastily handed her from a desk drawer once in a while, if she happens to be sitting near by and looking pale. I should not object to this, being healthy and seldom needing an iron tonic, but I do think the long waiting spells which any one who goes out with a doctor has to be subjected to would eventually make a woman so nervous that she would have to have some kind of tonic. I have registered a vow that hereafter, even if I start out somewhere with Alfred in August, I shall take my furs along, not knowing but that it will be winter when I get back.
He finally came, however, and in looking at him I forgot the tediousness of my long wait. His eyes were flashing and his face was flushed. He looked very angry—and very handsome. Evidently he had not been suffering from cold as I had.