“I don't believe you are wanted in there,” said Doctor Fleming.
“It's more than obvious that I'm not in here.”
“Oh, do sit down,” said the teased colonel.
The fire sulked and smoked a trifle with its brands apart. Doctor Fleming leaned forward upon his knees and regarded it thoughtfully. The colonel sat fondling the tongs. In a deep chair Mrs. Creve lay back and shaded her face with the end of her lace scarf. By her manner she might have been alone in the room, yet she was keenly observant of the men, for she felt that developments were taking place.
“What is the matter with your patient upstairs, Doctor?” the colonel began his cross-examination. Doctor Fleming raised his eyebrows.
“He's had nothing to eat to speak of for six weeks, at an altitude”—
“Yes; we know all that. But he's twenty-four years old. They made an easy trip back, and he has been here a week, nearly. He's not as strong as he was when they brought him in, is he?”
“That was excitement. You have to allow for the reaction. He has had a shock to the entire system,—nerves, digestion,—must give him time. Very nervous temperament too much controlled.”
“Make it as you like. But I'm disappointed in his rallying powers, unless you are keeping something back. A boy with the grit to do what he did, and stand it as he did—why isn't he standing it better now?”
“We are all suffering from reaction, I think,” said Mrs. Creve diplomatically; “and we show it by making too much of little things. Tom, we oughtn't to keep the doctor up here talking nonsense. He wants to go to bed.”