Had it been possible, he might have understood Hesselink’s success then, have noted that gravity and charm, that pity and sureness, which made people entrust their lives to him. Not cold and blaming was Hesselink now, but an older and wiser brother, very compassionate. Martin saw nothing. He was not a physician. He was a terrified boy, less useful to Hesselink than the dullest nurse.
When he was certain that Leora would recover, Martin sat by her bed, coaxing, “We’ll just have to make up our minds we never can have a baby now, and so I want— Oh, I’m no good! And I’ve got a rotten temper. But to you, I want to be everything!”
She whispered, scarce to be heard:
“He would have been such a sweet baby. Oh, I know! I saw him so often. Because I knew he was going to be like you, when you were a baby.” She tried to laugh. “Perhaps I wanted him because I could boss him. I’ve never had anybody that would let me boss him. So if I can’t have a real baby, I’ll have to bring you up. Make you a great man that everybody will wonder at, like your Sondelius.... Darling, I worried so about your worrying—”
He kissed her, and for hours they sat together, unspeaking, eternally understanding, in the prairie twilight.
CHAPTER XVII
I
Dr. Coughlin of Leopolis had a red mustache, a large heartiness, and a Maxwell which, though it was three years old this May and deplorable as to varnish, he believed to be the superior in speed and beauty of any motor in Dakota.
He came home in high cheerfulness, rode the youngest of his three children pickaback, and remarked to his wife:
“Tessie, I got a swell idea.”