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He worked eagerly, and at last he came to the small core of the mass. It
was a cigar!
It was somewhat later, when the peace of good tobacco had relaxed him
into a sort of benignant drowsiness, and when Dick had started for his
late afternoon calls, that Lucy came into the room.
"Elizabeth Wheeler's downstairs," she said. "I told her you wanted to
see her. She's brought some chicken jelly, too."
She gathered up the tissue paper that surrounded him, and gave the room
a critical survey. She often felt that the nurse was not as tidy as she
might be. Then she went over to him and put a hand on his shoulder.
"I don't want to worry you, David. Not now. But if he's going to marry
her--"
"Well, why shouldn't he?" he demanded truculently. "A good woman would
be one more anchor to windward."
She found that she could not go on. David was always incomprehensible to
her when it came to Dick. Had been incomprehensible from the first.
But she could not proceed without telling him that the village knew
something, and what that something was; that already she felt a change
in the local attitude toward Dick. He was, for one thing, not quite so
busy as he had been.
She went out of the room, and sent Elizabeth to David.
In her love for Dick, Elizabeth now included everything that pertained
to him, his shabby coats, his rattling car, and his people. She had
an inarticulate desire for their endorsement, to be liked by them and
wanted by them. Not that there could be any words, because both she and
Dick were content just then with love, and were holding it very secret
between them.
"Well, well!" said David. "And here we are reversed and I'm the patient
and you're the doctor! And good medicine you are, my dear."
He looked her over with approval, and with speculation, too. She was a
small and fragile vessel on which to embark all the hopes that, out of
his own celibate and unfulfilled life, he had dreamed for Dick. She was
even more than that. If Lucy was right, from now on she was a part
of that experiment in a human soul which he had begun with only a
professional interest, but which had ended by becoming a vital part of
his own life.
She was a little shy with him, he saw; rather fluttered and nervous, yet
radiantly happy. The combination of these mixed emotions, plus her best
sick-room manner, made her slightly prim at first. But soon she was
telling him the small news of the village, although David rather
suspected her of listening for Dick's car all the while. When she got up
to go and held out her hand he kept it, between both of his.