The night had turned unbelievably sultry while we sat at the table, so hot that the very breath of the tapers seemed unbearable and we all felt relieved, I think, to leave the table and dispose ourselves comfortably in the great, cushioned chairs and divans in Dr. Letheny’s study. The one lamp on the table was enough, though it left the room for the most part in shadow—rather uncanny green shadow, for the lamp was shaded with green silk and fringe. The windows had been flung to the top but there was not a breeze stirring, even here on the windward side of the hill, and it was so quiet that we could hear the katydids and crickets down in the orchard, and the faint strains of radio music from the open windows of the hospital, whose lights gleamed dully through the trees.
“Radio in a hospital?” queried Jim Gainsay amusedly.
“Lord, yes!” Dr. Letheny’s voice was edgy. “You have been out of the world a long time, Jim, not to know that a fashionable hospital must have all the latest fancies, including the best radio set to be had, with specially made loud-speakers connecting with it in every room. The money that is wasted,” he added bitterly, “on such notions could be employed to a good deal better advantage in other ways. How can we make much headway in research if all our money must be thrown away on—on lawns and flowers—” he waved impatiently toward the hospital—“on expensive apparatus that we seldom if ever use, on eight-thousand-dollar ambulances, on weather-staining bricks, on——”
“On radios,” suggested Gainsay blandly.
Dr. Letheny smiled faintly but the hand that lit a fresh cigarette seemed a little unsteady.
“On radios,” he agreed.
“You are right though, Dr. Letheny.” Dr. Balman, who had apparently been engaged in digesting his dinner, spoke so suddenly that I jumped. He lounged toward the window and stood with his hands in his pockets looking down at St. Ann’s lights.
“You are right,” he repeated. “If I had one-half the money that is thrown away down there the experiment that failed for me this afternoon might have succeeded.” The bitterness in his voice was so grim that I think we all felt a little startled and uncomfortable. All, that is, except Corole, whose feelings are not easily accessible and who was manipulating the coffee machine over by the lamp. Its light brought the flat, gold waves of her hair into relief.
“Here is the coffee,” she said huskily. “As coffee should be: black as night, hot as hell, and sweet as love.” She offered the tiny cup to Gainsay.
Well, the rest of us had heard her say that before and Gainsay did not appear to hear her now. I could see that she was hesitating on the verge of repetition, but she was too wise for that.