"You say that he fell off that embankment?" Larry remarked to her. "I was afraid he was too young to ride about here by himself with all the motors there are in this neighborhood. But Margaret was anxious to have him fearless…. People who motor are so careless—it has become a curse in the country…. Mrs. Woodyard came out with you? I am so sorry this frightful accident spoiled your day."…
He ran on from remark to remark, with no prompting from Isabelle, and had got to their life in Germany when the doctor entered the room. Larry shook hands punctiliously with him, inquiring in a special tone: "I hope you have good news of the little fellow, Doctor? I thought I would not go up until I had seen you first."…
The doctor cut short the father's prolixity in a burly voice:—
"It's concussion, passing off, I think. But nobody can say what will happen then,—whether there is anything wrong with the cord. It may clear up in a few days. It may not. No use speculating…. I shall be back to-morrow or send some one. Good day."
Larry followed him into the hall, talking, questioning, exclaiming. Isabella noticed that the doctor gave Pole a quick, impatient glance, shaking him off with a curt reply, and jumped into the waiting carriage. In some ways men read men more rapidly than women can. They look for fewer details, with an eye to the essential stuff of character.
What had the doctor said to Margaret? Had he let her know his evident fears? When she came into the room for a moment, there was an expression of fixed will in her white face, as if she had gone down into herself and found there the courage to meet whatever was coming…. 'The older boy, too,' thought Isabelle,—'the one so like her, with no outward trace of the father!'
While Margaret was giving directions for telephoning, making in brief phrases her arrangements for the day, Falkner came in. He was in his working clothes, and with his thick beard and scrubby mustache looked quite rough beside the trim Larry.
"How is the boy?" he demanded directly, going up to the mother.
"Better, I think,—comfortable at least," she answered gently. There was a warm gleam in her eyes as she spoke to this stranger, as if she had felt his fibre and liked it.
"I will come in this afternoon. I should like to see him when I can."