"

"If I never receive any less consideration than I have had here, I shall
do very well for the rest of my life."

"I know; they have all been very kind. But I shall be so relieved when
I can have you at home, where you will not feel obliged to have other
patients on your mind. In your condition it is too much to expect."

Jordan King was a good son, and he loved his mother deeply. But there
were moments when, as now, if he could have laid a kind but firm hand
upon her handsome, emotional mouth, he would have been delighted to do
so.

CHAPTER VIII

EXPERT DIAGNOSIS

"What would you give for a drive with me this morning?" Burns surveyed
his patient, now dressed and downstairs upon a pillared rear porch,
wistfulness in his eyes but determination on his lips.

"Do you mean it?"

"Yes. We may as well try what that back will stand. Most of the drive
will be sitting still in front of houses, anyhow, and in your plaster
jacket you're pretty safe from injury."

"Thank heaven!" murmured Jordan King fervently.

Two minutes later he was beside Burns in the Doctor's car, staring
eagerly ahead, lifting his hat now and then as some one gave him
interested greeting from passing motor. More than once Burns was obliged
to bring his car to a short standstill, so that some delighted friend
might grasp King's hand and tell him how good it seemed to see him out.
With one and all the young man was very blithe, though he let them do
most of the talking. They all told him heartily that he was looking
wonderfully well, while they ignored with the understanding of the
intelligent certain signs which spoke of physical and mental strain.

"Your friends," Burns remarked as they went on after one particularly
pleasant encounter, "seem to belong to the class who possess brains. I
wish it were a larger class. Every day I find some patient suffering
from depression caused by fool comments from some well-meaning
acquaintance."

"I've had a few of those, too," King acknowledged.

"I'll wager you have. Well, among a certain class of people there seems
to be an idea that you can't show real sympathy without telling the
victim that he's looking very ill, and that you have known several such
cases which didn't recover. I have one little woman on my list who would
have been well long ago if she hadn't had so many loving friends to
impress her with the idea that her case was desperate. I talk Dutch to
such people now and then, when I