“I don’t believe he knows shucks!” was Alice’s comment when she closed the street door upon Dr. Ledsmar. “Anybody could have come in and looked at a sick man and said, ‘Leave him alone.’ You expect something more from a doctor. It’s his business to say what to do. And I suppose he’ll charge two dollars for just telling me that my husband was resting!”
“No,” said Brother Soulsby, “he said he never practised, and that he would come only as a friend.”
“Well, it isn’t my idea of a friend—not to prescribe a single thing,” protested Alice.
Yet it seemed that no prescription was needed, after all. The next morning Theron woke to find himself feeling quite restored in spirits and nerves. He sat up in bed, and after an instant of weakly giddiness, recognized that he was all right again. Greatly pleased, he got up, and proceeded to dress himself. There were little recurring hints of faintness and vertigo, while he was shaving, but he had the sense to refer these to the fact that he was very, very hungry. He went downstairs, and smiled with the pleased pride of a child at the surprise which his appearance at the door created. Alice and the Soulsbys were at breakfast. He joined them, and ate voraciously, declaring that it was worth a month’s illness to have things taste so good once more.
“You still look white as a sheet,” said Alice, warningly. “If I were you, I’d be careful in my diet for a spell yet.”
For answer, Theron let Sister Soulsby help him again to ham and eggs. He talked exclusively to Sister Soulsby, or rather invited her by his manner to talk to him, and listened and watched her with indolent content. There was a sort of happy and purified languor in his physical and mental being, which needed and appreciated just this—to sit next a bright and attractive woman at a good breakfast, and be ministered to by her sprightly conversation, by the flash of her informing and inspiring eyes, and the nameless sense of support and repose which her near proximity exhaled. He felt himself figuratively leaning against Sister Soulsby’s buoyant personality, and resting.
Brother Soulsby, like the intelligent creature he was, ate his breakfast in peace; but Alice would interpose remarks from time to time. Theron was conscious of a certain annoyance at this, and knew that he was showing it by an exaggerated display of interest in everything Sister Soulsby said, and persisted in it. There trembled in the background of his thoughts ever and again the recollection of a grievance against his wife—an offence which she had committed—but he put it aside as something to be grappled and dealt with when he felt again like taking up the serious and disagreeable things of life. For the moment, he desired only to be amused by Sister Soulsby. Her casual mention of the fact that she and her husband were taking their departure that very day, appealed to him as an added reason for devoting his entire attention to her.
“You mustn’t forget that famous talking-to you threatened me with—that ‘regular hoeing-over,’ you know,” he reminded her, when he found himself alone with her after breakfast. He smiled as he spoke, in frank enjoyment of the prospect.
Sister Soulsby nodded, and aided with a roll of her eyes the effect of mock-menace in her uplifted forefinger. “Oh, never fear,” she cried. “You’ll catch it hot and strong. But that’ll keep till afternoon. Tell me, do you feel strong enough to go in next door and attend the trustees’ meeting this forenoon? It’s rather important that you should be there, if you can spur yourself up to it. By the way, you haven’t asked what happened at the Quarterly Conference yesterday.”
Theron sighed, and made a little grimace of repugnance. “If you knew how little I cared!” he said. “I did hope you’d forget all about mentioning that—and everything else connected with—the next door. You talk so much more interestingly about other things.”
“Here’s gratitude for you!” exclaimed Sister Soulsby, with a gay simulation of despair. “Why, man alive, do you know what I’ve done for you? I got around on the Presiding Elder’s blind side, I captured old Pierce, I wound Winch right around my little finger, I worked two or three of the class-leaders—all on your account. The result was you went through as if you’d had your ears pinned back, and been greased all over. You’ve got an extra hundred dollars added to your salary; do you hear? On the sixth question of the order of business the Elder ruled that the recommendation of the last conference’s estimating committee could be revised (between ourselves he was wrong, but that doesn’t matter), and so you’re in clover. And very friendly things were said about you, too.”
“It was very kind of you,” said Theron. “I am really extremely grateful to you.” He shook her by the hand to make up for what he realized to be a lack of fervor in his tones.
“Well, then,” Sister Soulsby replied, “you pull yourself together, and take your place as chairman of the trustees’ meeting, and see to it that, whatever comes up, you side with old Pierce and Winch.”
“Oh, they’re my friends now, are they?” asked Theron, with a faint play of irony about his lips.
“Yes, that’s your ticket this election,” she answered briskly, “and mind you vote it straight. Don’t bother about reasons now. Just take it from me, as the song says, ‘that things have changed since Willie died.’ That’s all. And then come back here, and this afternoon we’ll have a good old-fashioned jaw.”
The Rev. Mr. Ware, walking with ostentatious feebleness, and forcing a conventional smile upon his wan face, duly made his unexpected appearance at the trustees’ meeting in one of the smaller classrooms. He received their congratulations gravely, and shook hands with all three. It required an effort to do this impartially, because, upon sight of Levi
