As for Munn, his game appeared to be up. He hurried to New York, and spent a month or two attempting to find some trace of his ward, then his money gave out. He returned to his community and wrote a cringing letter to Sprowl, begging him to buy the O’Hara land for next to nothing, and risk the legality of the transfer. To which Sprowl paid no attention. A week later Munn and the Shining Band left for Munnville, Maine.
It was vaguely understood at the club that Lansing had a patient in 5 and 6.
“Probably a rich woman whom he can’t afford to lose,” suggested Sprowl, with a sneer; “but I’m cursed if I can see why he should turn this club into a drug-shop to make money in!” And the Colonel and the Major agreed that it was indecent in the extreme.
To his face, of course, Sprowl, the Colonel, and the Major treated Lansing with perfect respect; but the faint odor of antiseptics from rooms 5 and 6 made them madder and madder every time they noticed it.
Meanwhile young Coursay had a free bridle; Lansing was never around to interfere, and he drove and rode and fished and strolled with Agatha Sprowl until neither he nor the shameless beauty knew whether they were standing on their heads or their heels. To be in love was a new sensation to Agatha Sprowl; to believe himself in love was nothing new to Coursay, but the flavor never palled.
What they might have done—what, perhaps, they had already decided to do—nobody but they knew. The chances are that they would have bolted if they had not run smack into that rigid sentinel who guards the pathway of life. The sentinel is called Fate. And it came about in the following manner:
Dr. Courtney Thayer arrived one cool day early in October; Lansing met him with a quiet smile, and, together, these eminent gentlemen entered rooms 5 and 6.
A few moments later Courtney Thayer came out, laughing, followed by Lansing, who also appeared to be a prey to mirth.
“She’s charming—she’s perfectly charming!” said Courtney Thayer. “Where the deuce do these Yankee convent people get that elusive Continental flavor? Her father must have been a gentleman.”
“He was an Irish lumberman,” said Lansing. After a moment he added: “So you won’t come back, doctor?”