CHAPTER VIII
THE EMPTY HOUSE
When the doctor came that night he was tired. The day had been a hard one, and he felt weighed down by the woes of those weak folk who bore so heavily on his strength.
He found Bettina alone. Diana and Sophie had gone to play bridge across the harbor, and only Delia in the garden and Peter Pan on the porch remained for chaperonage.
Bettina greeted her betrothed soberly, and held up her face to be kissed. "I said things about you yesterday," she confessed, as she and Anthony settled themselves on the porch where they could look out upon the lights. "I said things about you to Diana, and afterward we went to the Pirate House with Justin Ford for lunch, and I flirted with him——"
"What did you say about me?"
"That I hated your surgery—that it seemed dreadful."
He had been smiling, but he grew grave at once.
"You can't separate me from my work, child; you must take us together."