press his
admiration by his own look, though with his smoothly spoken words he had
not hesitated to say a thing about her husband which was at once somehow
a compliment and a stab.

"I can't imagine Dr. Van Horn taking much pains with 'humble folk,'"
Ellen said to herself. "Yet he's evidently consulting with Red at this
house, which doesn't seem exactly a 'humble' abode. I wonder if they get
on well together. They're certainly not much alike."

The wait proved to be a long one. Ellen had studied her surroundings with
thoroughness in every direction before the house-door opened at last, and
the two men came down the walk together. They were talking earnestly as
they came, and at a point some yards away they ceased to advance, and
stood still, evidently in tense discussion over the case just left. They
spoke in the low tones customary with men of their profession, and their
words did not reach Ellen's ears. But it was not difficult to recognize,
as she watched their faces, that they were differing, and differing
radically, on the matter in hand.

They had turned to face each other, and neither looked her way, so
it was possible for Ellen to study the two without fear of intrusion.
They made an interesting study, certainly. Dr. Van Horn's face was
impassive as to the play of his features, except that he smiled, from
time to time,--a smile which bore out Ellen's previous feeling concerning
its possibilities for cynicism rather than sympathy. His eyes, however,
steely blue and cold in their expression, told more than his face of
antagonism to the man with whom he spoke. But his command of manner, to
the outward observer, who could not hear his words, was perfect.

As for R.P. Burns, M.D., there was no disguising the fact that he was
intensely angry. That he strove, and strove hard, to control his manner,
if not his anger, was perfectly evident to his wife, but that he was
succeeding ill at the task was painfully apparent. His colour was
high--it nearly matched his hair; his eyes burned like consuming fires
under their dark brows; his lips spoke fast and fiercely. He kept his
voice down--Ellen was thankful for that--and his gestures, though
forceful, were controlled; but she feared at every moment that he would
break out into open show of temper, and it seemed to her that this she
could not bear.

She had never before seen Red Pepper really angry. She had been told,
again and again since her first meeting with him, by he