Apparently her driver was not posted on the nocturnal habits of the druggist, for he did not venture an opinion.
The accelerator received an extra pressure at that moment, and the powerful car suddenly bounded forward.
“I can’t tell you how grateful I am,” said the girl, a bit perplexed by his silence. “I’m sure I shouldn’t have known what to do, if you hadn’t happened along.”
Bobby was occupied with the adjustment of the ignition lever.
“But I’m afraid I’m putting you to a great deal of inconvenience,” she added anxiously.
He spoke at length, as from a considerable distance.
“The car is in perfect condition,” he said. “I’ll get out here. You need not go to the garage.” The brakes were applied with determination, and the car came to an abrupt stop. Bobby opened the door on the left and stepped out.
“Oh, but you’re miles from where you found me!” she exclaimed. “Do let me put you down where you’d rather be. Please!”
He could not meet her eyes. “I was just sauntering,” he said absently. “It’s no matter.”
She slipped over behind the wheel and held out her hand. It trembled a little as he wrapped his fingers around it. She was bewildered. Whatever had she said to hurt him?
“Good night, then; and thank you so much!” Her voice was unsteady.
He retained her hand for an instant, said “Good night” in a tone that might mean weariness, dejection, or disappointment, turned, and stepped away into the darkness. She engaged the gears. The car moved slowly, tentatively, hesitatingly forward. Bobby watched the little red taillight until it vanished at the next turn.
A half hour later, he sat down at his piano in the tomby drawing-room at Windymere, and, vastly occupied with his reflections, toyed with an experimental ending to Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony.
V
It was late afternoon of the last Sunday in September. Nancy Ashford’s snug retreat, immediately adjacent to the general administrative offices in Brightwood Hospital, had proved too small to house the radiant spirits of herself and her guest. She had gratefully accepted Bobby’s suggestion that they take a drive. Sitting close to him in the big, gaudy, rakish roadster, her elbow touching his, it pleased Nancy to indulge the fancy that passersby might think him her son. Her life had been filled and emptied twice. It was brimming again.
Nothing could have been more clear to the white-haired hospital superintendent, as she greeted her expected visitor, at the door of her little office, that afternoon, than that he was hopeful of stating his errand in a manner to insure against its reception with surprise or emotion. He had a very businesslike air, and she determined to match it.
He had blurted out his story immediately upon arrival. Tossing his hat upon her desk, and seating himself by her on the little divan, he had said brusquely, “Well, I’m resolved to do it. It will be no surprise to you; for it was really your idea in the first place, even if you didn’t specify the details. It’s all arranged now. I am entering the Medical School at the University, a week from Thursday … Are you glad?”
Nancy had reached out a hand for his, winked back the sudden tears and bit her lip in an effort at control. Her eyes shone. But she did not speak.
“Of course,” continued Bobby hurriedly, as if reciting lines, “I have no illusions in this matter. It means a long, hard grind of drudgery, and I am not naturally industrious. It will be five years, at least, before I can even guess whether I am likely to succeed, or have only been making myself ridiculous. I take chances of becoming an obscure second-rater. In that case, I shall have become merely absurd at the cost of a very great deal of time and trouble. People would grin. They would say—I can hear them—‘Yeah; he’s the fellow that thought he’d be another Doctor Hudson.’ But maybe the threat of that will put a little more fight into me. It’s foolish, I suppose, to hope that I might sometime be even a halfway substitute for him; but—I can move in that direction, anyway.”
“I felt confident you would come to some such decision as this, Bobby,” commented Nancy quietly, “and I feel even more sure—now you have decided—that you will succeed.”
“Your hope will help—a lot!”
“Now you will be wanting to learn all you can find out about Doctor Hudson, won’t you?”
At this juncture, the tiny office had seemed stifling. They would ride. Bobby would drive and listen; Nancy would do the talking. For fully twenty miles they had been weaving swiftly in and out of the Sunday traffic on crowded boulevards; and, now, with speed reduced, were traversing a more quiet suburban street. Nancy had been recalling some of the more singular facts in the life of her hero, especially relating to his wide diversity of philanthropic interests and his odd whim of keeping them a secret.
“Did his family know?”
“I doubt it. Joyce was a mere baby when he began doing these queer things for people, and it is unlikely that he ever told her. And Mrs. Hudson, during a call she made at the hospital only last Thursday, asked some questions indicating he had not confided that feature of his life to her. Many of his wards and beneficiaries have been coming to see her with expressions of sympathy, and some with proffers of assistance if she needed it. She was naturally curious.”
“Yes; I know just a little about that. Learned it only today. Tom Masterson dropped in, as I was preparing to leave Windymere, at noon. He had driven Joyce up to the Hudson cottage, where Mrs. Hudson is spending a few days. He came over to inquire if I would join them there for the afternoon. I told him of my engagement in town.”
“Perhaps you should have gone. You could have telephoned to me. Have
