ll as ever. And there
are things, you know, things about your buttons and your meals, that
nobody but a wife can ever manage properly. Take my advice, Opdyke, the
advice of a veteran, and go about it. Then, when you're on your feet
again, you'll have her ready to look out for you."

Reed smiled rather inscrutably to himself.

"Plenty of time, Prather," he said.

"No, no." Prather rose. "Best be about it soon. You'll find it makes
the greatest difference with you. Besides, as I say, it is time you
went about it, or you will get on your legs, the same lonely bachelor
you were when you went off them. And Doctor Keltridge says that you are
gaining fast."

Reed looked up suddenly, incisively.

"Did Doctor Keltridge say that?" he demanded.

"Well, not in those exact words; but that was the burden of his song,
the motif of his story, if I may speak so shoppishly." Again Prather's
hand sought his mustache. "It is quite evident to everybody, Opdyke,
that you are on the gain."

Reed Opdyke watched him out of sight. Then,--

"Is it?" he said a little bitterly. "I wonder why his _everybody_ must
needs exclude me."

Next day, Olive gone and no one else in prospect, Reed lay staring out
through the open window into the green trees on the lawn, staring
listlessly, with no especial thought of envy for the birds hopping
among the branches. Indeed, even to Reed himself, that was the most
tragic phase of the whole tragic situation: that his hours of restless
longing seemed to have come to a final end. Always too sane to waste
regrets upon futilities, he had come now to a point of passive
acceptance of the immutable bad in his surroundings, an active effort
only to snatch at whatever good remained. It did not affect his
attitude in the very least that, nine days out of every ten, he had to
take a spiritual microscope to hunt the good. One of the longest
lessons is the learning to pick up the crumbs of comfort, when one has
been used to munching the whole loaf. However, Reed was conning the
lesson steadily, learning it by slow degrees.

This time, however, he was more occupied in studying how best to face
certain inevitable bad half-hours before him than he was in picking any
crumbs of comfort from their prospect. It seemed to him a little bit
unfair, now that he knew past all gainsaying what the future held for
him, to go on allowing his parents and some friends--well, Olive, if
one must be so specific--to continue hoping agai