"Come now, old chap—it isn't like you to surrender before the battle. We'll prepare to meet the foe—though I give you my word of honour I don't expect the enemy to show up. This isn't in the cards. I know it."
Karl roused a little. There was a bracing note in that vehemence. "Well, don't ask me to do any crossing of a bridge before I come to it. I think our friend down stairs is thinking of hospitals and nurses and all kinds of quirks that would drive me crazy. Tell him I know what I'm about. Tell him to let me alone!"
"All right," laughed the doctor, knowing Karl too well to press the matter further just then, "though, of course, common-sense demands quiet and a dark room."
"Ernestine will darken our rooms at home," said Karl stubbornly.
It was strange how quickly they could turn to the refuge of everyday phrases, could hide their innermost selves within their average selves as the only shelter which opened to them. There was something Dr. Parkman wanted to do for him, and they went into the treatment room. In there they spoke about meeting for dinner,—Ernestine had asked the doctor to come out. Georgia and her mother were coming too, Karl told him, and the interview closed with some light word about not being late for dinner.
CHAPTER XIV
"TO THE GREAT UNWHIMPERING!"
"Tell me some good stories about doctors," said Georgia; "I want to use them in something I'm going to write."
"Isn't it dreadful?" said Mrs. McCormick, turning to Dr. Parkman, "she even interviews people while they eat!" Mrs. McCormick had that manner of some mothers of seeming to be constantly disapproving, while not in the least concealing her unqualified admiration.
"I'm not interviewing them, Mother. Skillful interviewers never interview. They just get people to talk."