d object if
we stayed, out here at the hotel for supper? I've ordered a moon,
orange-yellow and extra size."

"I should hate to have anything ordered and wasted."

"Then we'll stay."

"It's fearfully extravagant."

"I'll be thrifty as to moons while you are in the hospital."

So it was settled. And, as it happened, Sidney had to stay, anyhow. For,
having perched herself out in the river on a sugar-loaf rock, she slid,
slowly but with a dreadful inevitability, into the water. K. happened
to be looking in another direction. So it occurred that at one moment,
Sidney sat on a rock, fluffy white from head to feet, entrancingly
pretty, and knowing it, and the next she was standing neck deep in
water, much too startled to scream, and trying to be dignified under the
rather trying circumstances. K. had not looked around. The splash had
been a gentle one.

"If you will be good enough," said Sidney, with her chin well up, "to
give me your hand or a pole or something--because if the river rises an
inch I shall drown."

To his undying credit, K. Le Moyne did not laugh when he turned and saw
her. He went out on the sugar-loaf rock, and lifted her bodily up its
slippery sides. He had prodigious strength, in spite of his leanness.

"Well!" said Sidney, when they were both on the rock, carefully
balanced.

"Are you cold?"

"Not a bit. But horribly unhappy. I must look a sight." Then,
remembering her manners, as the Street had it, she said primly:--

"Thank you for saving me."

"There wasn't any danger, really, unless--unless the river had risen."

And then, suddenly, he burst into delighted laughter, the first,
perhaps, for months. He shook with it, struggled at the sight of her
injured face to restrain it, achieved finally a degree of sobriety by
fixing his eyes on the river-bank.

"When you have quite finished," said Sidney severely, "perhaps you will
take me to the hotel. I dare say I shall have to be washed and ironed."

He drew her cautiously to her feet. Her wet skirts clung to her; her
shoes were sodden and heavy. She clung to him frantically, her eyes on
the river below. With the touch of her hands the man's mirth died.
He held her very carefully, very tenderly, as one holds something
infinitely precious.

CHAPTER VI

The same day Dr. Max operated at the hospital. It was a Wilson day, the
young surgeon having six cases. One of the innovations Dr. Max had
made was to change the hour for major opera