'No. Of course, you couldn't,' said Gertrude with surprising indulgence. 'Nevertheless it is . . . well ... Of course'—she drew herself up stiffer if possible— ''we did not call.'
'If he's coming,' said Isabel, 'we must warn Maud.'
'Where is Maud?'
'I haven't the famtest idea,' said Alice. 'Nor have you the faintest idea how annoying all this mystery is to me.' She spoke angrily. Then she held her breath for their reaction.
Isabel's eyes shifted. 'My dear Alice,' she complained, 'it's so awkward. Of course you couldn't know, my dear. When Maud was younger she and Dr. Follett. . . Well, he was her suitor. . . .'
'Dr. Follett,' said Gertrude in her cool tinkling voice, 'went away on what we supposed was a vacation. He married another woman and brought her here to Ogaunee. Of course, we have had no communication with him since.'
'I see,' said Alice gravely, although she wanted to laugh. 'How long ago was this. Miss Whitlock?'
'It was in 1917,' Gertrude said, as if time stood still for her and this was just the other day.
'But what do you do for a doctor?'
'Oh, Dr. Gunderson is only eleven miles away,' said Isabel. 'Really, Alice, you ought to have asked. How dreadful for Maud, for all of us.'
Maud was approaching through the dining room. That tread, at once quick and heavy, was the unmistakable con-
comitant of her waddling gait. She came through the door in a moment, shapeless in a dark cloak. She too, had been out of doors. Alice idly wondered where and why.
Isabel spoke to her on the swift fingers of her only hand. Alice watched the pale heavy face, waiting for news to seep through to whatever brain worked behind those little pig eyes that blinked once or twice, but remained fastened on the fingers. She saw the face change, grow sly. The loose hps fell open in a queer smile. The eyes sharpened. Surely the expression was that of anticipation and imholy joy.
Maud said, in her chest tones, 'Is that so?'
Isabel's hand worked madly.
'Aw, let him come,' said Maud.
'She must not see him,' said Gertrude sharply. 'She must go upstairs at once.' Her voice rang with command. Maud looked planted there on her two Siick stems. Gertrude struck her on the shoulder with her forefinger. Her blind face was imperious.
Then came the doorbell, and the three sisters scuttled out of the hall. Gertrude picked up her skirts and sailed through the parlor toward her own room, with majestic certainty and uncanny speed. Isabel climbed the stairs, pushing Maud before her. Maud, who went up with her face turned backward, reluctant, thoroughly uncoy, per-fecdy wUling to risk an encounter with the man in her life. But she let Isabel hurry her past the table that stood just behind the railing on the edge of the stairwell, and around the comer of an upstairs wall.
They were gone. Alice stood alone, at the foot of the stairs, half exasperated, half relieved.
Dr. Follet was about sixty years old, she guessed, a dignified and rather pordy fellow with a bald head and gold-rimmed eyeglasses. His face was pink and talcumed. His neat tan suit was smooth over his robinlike contours. He sent forth a faint clean aroma, antiseptic and comforting. He acted as if he had resolved to do his duty precisely.
He kept his eyes on her face and his head nodding while he listened to her account of the disaster that had overtaken Innes Whitlock. He said, when she had finished, 'Thank you, Miss Brennan, that's very helpful. Now where is the patient?'
Alice knocked on the sliding doors and then began to draw them back. Someone helped from the other side. It was Fred.
Innes was still lying on the sofa, looking very pale, scarcely able to Uft his head. His mother sat in a chair, pulled up close, and she now rose to make room for the doctor.
'Ah,' said Dr. Follett, 'how are you, Susan?'
'Oh, I'm fine,' she said. 'Just fine. And you, doctor?'
Again Alice felt imreasonably lonely to be left out of a whole world of people who kept saying, 'Fine. Just fine,' to each other.
Fred had gone. 'Would you rather I went away?'' asked Alice.
'No, no,' Innes said. 'Doctor, this is Miss Brennan, my fiancee.'
'Ah,' said Dr. Follett, 'she told me she was your secretary.' In here, safe from the Whitlock girls, he was less businesslike. He looked benignly at Alice through the upper half of his glasses.
'The thing is that I must get along to my camp, doctor,' Innes said fretfully. 'The object of this whole trip. I never meant to stop here at all. But now Alice has got it into her head to worry about me.' Alice wondered who had told him. 'Fred says she won't let me go until you've seen me. She's being very bossy.' He used his httle-boy voice and his pout, but she realized that he was much pleased. The role of an anxious sweetheart hadn't occurred to her, but here it was, ready and waiting.
'Naturally,' said the doctor. 'And quite right, too. Now . . .''
Susan Innes Whitlock drew Alice to a far comer of the room. They sat down with their backs to the men. 'Innes has been telling me. I'm so happy about you. I've hoped he would find somebody. And I do think you were very wise to make him see the doctor.'
'Thaitk you,' said Alice, feeling a little ashamed. 'But IVe upset his sisters.'
