"Not too late for dinner out of town somewhere and a ride under the May
moon." Her voice rang high and happy.

For the rest of the morning he had no time to think of his own affairs.
The operation was extremely rare and interesting, and Austin's skill was
superb. Richard felt as if he were taking part in a play, in which the
actors were the white clad and competent doctors and nurses, and the
stage was the surgical room.

Eve coming for him, found him tired and taciturn. She respected his mood,
and said little, and they rode out and out from the town and up and up
into the Westchester hills, dotted with dogwood, pink and white like huge
nosegays. As the night came on there was the fragrance of the gardens,
the lights of the little towns; then once more the shadows as they swept
again into the country.

"We will go as far as we dare," Eve said. "I know an adorable place to
dine."

She tried more than once to bring him to speak of Austin, but he put her
off. "I am dead tired, dear girl; you talk until we have something to
eat."

"Oh," Eve surveyed him scornfully, "oh, men and their appetites!"

But she had a thousand things to tell him, and her light chatter carried
him away from somber thoughts, so that when they reached at last the
quaint hostelry toward which their trip had tended, he was ready to meet
Eve's mood half-way, and enter with some zest upon their gay adventure.
She chose a little table on a side porch, where they were screened from
observation, and which overlooked the river, and there took off her hat
and powdered her nose, and gave her attention to the selection of the
dinner.

"A clear soup, Dicky Boy, and Maryland chicken, hot asparagus, a Russian
dressing for our lettuce, and at the end red raspberries with little
cakes. They are sponge cakes, Dicky, filled with cream, and they are food
for the gods."

He was hungry and tired and he wanted to eat. He was glad when the food
came on.

When he finished he leaned back and talked shop. "If you don't like it,"
he told Eve, "I'll stop. Some women hate it."

"I love it," Eve said. "Dicky, when I dream of your future you are always
at the top of things, with smaller men running after you and taking your
orders."

He smiled. "Don't dream. It doesn't pay. I've stopped."

She glanced at him. His face was stern.

"What's up, Dicky Boy?"

He laughed without mirth. "Oh, I'm beginning to think we are puppets
pulled by strings; that things happen as