t visit, that it were better all around
if he did not come again.

"If you wait for Richard, you'll wait a long time," his mother
observed grimly. "He called up a while ago, and said he had been
invited to an impromptu studio party that he couldn't get away from,
and that he would be home in two or three hours. But I know Richard.
If he gets interested in anything like that he won't be home until
midnight."

I do not pretend either to analyze or excuse the feeling of reckless
defiance that seized me upon hearing of Dicky's absence. I reflected
bitterly that I had taken all the burden of seeing to the new home,
and was suffering from illness contracted because of that work, while
Dicky was frolicking at a studio party, with never a thought of me.

I know without being told that Grace Draper was a member of the
frolic. And here I was suffering, yet refusing the services of a
skilled physician because I fancied there was something in his manner
the tolerance of which would savor of disloyalty to Dicky!

I turned to my mother-in-law to tell her she could summon the
physician, but found that I could hardly speak. My throat felt as if I
were choking.

"The spray!" I gasped.

Thoroughly alarmed, Mother Graham assisted me in spraying my throat
with a strong antiseptic solution. Then I gave her the number of Dr.
Pettit's office, and she called him up. I heard her tell him to make
haste, and then she came back to me. I saw that she was frightened
about the condition of my throat, but the choking feeling gave me no
time to be frightened. I kept the spray going almost constantly until
the physician came. It was the only way I could breathe.

Dr. Pettit must have made a record journey, for the door bell
signalled his arrival only a few moments after Mother Graham's
message.

He gave my throat one swift, shrewd glance, then turned to his small
valise and drew from it a stick, some absorbent cotton and a bottle of
dark liquid. With swift, sure movements he prepared a swab, and turned
to me.

"Open your mouth again," he said gently, but peremptorily.

I obeyed him, and the antiseptic bathed the swollen tonsils surely and
skilfully.

As I swayed, almost staggered, in the spasm of coughing and choking
which followed, I felt the strong, sure support of his arm touching my
shoulders, of his hand grasping mine.

"Now lie down," he commanded gently, when the paroxysm was over. He
drew the covers over me himself, lifted my he