He watched her as she stood there buttoning her glove—slight, almost frail, scarcely one's idea of a "masterful woman." It struck him then as strange that she had not so much as asked for pledge of his allegiance. What was it about her—?
She was holding out her hand. Something in her eyes lighted and glorified her whole face. "Thank you, doctor," she said, very low.
For a long time he sat motionless before his desk. He was thinking of many things. "Nothing in which to believe," he murmured at last, looking about the room still warm with the spirit she had left—"nothing in which to believe—when there is love such as this in the world?"
CHAPTER XXV
DR. PARKMAN'S WAY
The next morning Dr. Parkman turned his automobile in the direction of the University of Chicago. There was a very grim look on his face as he sent the car, with the hand of an expert, through the crowded streets. He had his do-or-die expression, and the way he was letting the machine out would not indicate a shrinking back from what lay before him. He rather chuckled once; that is, it began in a chuckle, and ended with the semblance of a grunt, and when he finally swung the car down the Midway, he was saying to himself: "Glad of it! I've been wanting for a long time to tell that Lane what I thought of him."
Inquiries over the telephone had developed the fact that through some shifting about, Dr. George Lane was temporary head of the department; it was to Dr. George Lane then that Dr. Parkman must go with the matter in hand this morning. That had seemed bad at first, for Lane was one man out there he couldn't get on with and did not want to. They always clashed; upon their last meeting Lane had said—"Really now, Dr. Parkman, don't you feel that a broader culture is the real need of the medical profession?" and Parkman had retorted, "Shouldn't wonder, but has it ever struck you, Dr. Lane, that a little more horse sense is the real need of the university professor?" He declared, grimly, as he finally drew his car to a snorting stop at the university that he would have to try some other method than "firing his soul," as Ernestine had bade him do. "In the first place," he figured it out, "he has no soul, and if he had, I wouldn't be the one to fire it with anything but rage." But the doctor was not worrying much about results. He thought he had a little ammunition in reserve which assured the outcome, and which would enable him, at the same time, to "let loose on Lane," should the latter show a tendency to become too important.
The erudite Lane was a neatly built little fellow, very spick and span. First America and then England had done their best—or worst—by him. Just as every hair on his head was properly brushed, so Dr. Parkman felt quite sure that every idea within the head was properly beaten down with a pair of intellectual military brushes, one of which he had acquired to the west, and the other to the east of the Atlantic. "I suppose he's a scholar," mused the doctor, as he surveyed the back of the dignitary's head while waiting, "but what in God's name would he do if he were ever to be hit with an original idea?"
"Ah, yes, Dr. Parkman, we so seldom see you very busy men out here. We always appreciate it when you busy men look in upon us."
Now the tone did not appeal to Dr. Parkman, and with one of his quick decisions he bade tact take itself to the four winds, leaving him alone with his reserve guns.