tant, Dr. Withers."

Dr. Withers, bringing with him an intolerable smell of disinfectants and
chloroform, hurried in, with his hair mussed from the haste with which he
had removed his operating-garments. He had small, bright, brown eyes,
with little lines about them that seemed to suggest humor, but actually
indicated that he buoyed up his life not by exaltation of himself, but by
half-laughing depreciation of every one else.

"I thought you'd be glad to know, Mrs. Farron," he said, "that any danger
that may have existed is now over. Your husband--"

"That _may_ have existed," cried Adelaide. "Do you mean to say there
hasn't been any real danger?"

The young doctor's eyes twinkled.

"An operation even in the best hands is always a danger," he replied.

"But you mean there was no other?" Adelaide asked, aware of a growing
coldness about her hands and feet.

Withers looked as just as Aristides.

"It was probably wise to operate," he said. "Your husband ought to be up
and about in three weeks."

Everything grew black and rotatory before Adelaide's eyes, and she sank
slowly forward into the young doctor's arms.

As he laid her on the bed, he glanced whimsically at the nurse and
shook his head.

But she made no response, an omission which may not have meant loyalty to
Dr. Crew so much as unwillingness to support Dr. Withers.

Adelaide returned to consciousness only in time to be hurried away to
make room for Vincent. His long, limp figure was carried past her in the
corridor. She was told that in a few hours she might see him. But she
wasn't, as a matter of fact, very eager to see him. The knowledge that he
was to live, the lifting of the weight of dread, was enough. The maternal
strain did not mingle with her love for him; she saw no possible reward,
no increased sense of possession, in his illness. On the contrary, she
wanted him to stride back in one day from death to his old powerful,
dominating self.

She grew to hate the hospital routine, the fixed hours, the regulated
food. "These rules, these hovering women," she exclaimed, "these
trays--they make me think of the nursery." But what she really hated was
Vincent's submission to it all. In her heart she would have been glad to
see him breaking the rules, defying the doctors, and bullying his nurses.

Before long a strong, silent antagonism grew up between her and the
bright-eyed, cheerful nurse, Miss Gregory. It irritated Adelaide to gain
access to her