He stirred restlessly. To stay on, to be near Sidney, perhaps to stand by as Wilson's best man when he was married—it turned him cold. But he did not give a decided negative. The sick man was flushed and growing fretful; it would not do to irritate him.
“Give me another day on it,” he said at last. And so the matter stood.
Max's injury had been productive of good, in one way. It had brought the two brothers closer together. In the mornings Max was restless until Dr. Ed arrived. When he came, he brought books in the shabby bag—his beloved Burns, although he needed no book for that, the “Pickwick Papers,” Renan's “Lives of the Disciples.” Very often Max world doze off; at the cessation of Dr. Ed's sonorous voice the sick man would stir fretfully and demand more. But because he listened to everything without discrimination, the older man came to the conclusion that it was the companionship that counted. It pleased him vastly. It reminded him of Max's boyhood, when he had read to Max at night. For once in the last dozen years, he needed him.
“Go on, Ed. What in blazes makes you stop every five minutes?” Max protested, one day.
Dr. Ed, who had only stopped to bite off the end of a stogie to hold in his cheek, picked up his book in a hurry, and eyed the invalid over it.
“Stop bullying. I'll read when I'm ready. Have you any idea what I'm reading?”
“Of course.”
“Well, I haven't. For ten minutes I've been reading across both pages!”
Max laughed, and suddenly put out his hand. Demonstrations of affection were so rare with him that for a moment Dr. Ed was puzzled. Then, rather sheepishly, he took it.
“When I get out,” Max said, “we'll have to go out to the White Springs again and have supper.”