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"I haven't been studying symptoms for all these years for nothing, my
dear," he said. "And it seems to me somebody is very happy."
"I am, Doctor David."
He patted her hand.
"Mind you," he said, "I don't know anything and I'm not asking any
questions. But if the Board of Trade, or the Chief of Police, had come
to me and said, 'Who is the best wife for--well, for a young man who
is an important part of this community?' I'd have said in reply,
'Gentlemen, there is a Miss Elizabeth Wheeler who--'"
Suddenly she bent down and kissed him.
"Oh, do you think so?" she asked, breathlessly. "I love him so much,
Doctor David. And I feel so unworthy."
"So you are," he said. "So's he. So are all of us, when it comes to a
great love, child. That is, we are never quite what the other fellow
thinks we are. It's when we don't allow for what the scientist folk call
a margin of error that we come our croppers. I wonder"--he watched her
closely--"if you young people ever allow for a margin of error?"
"I only know this," she said steadily. "I can't imagine ever caring any
less. I've never thought about myself very much, but I do know that. You
see, I think I've cared for a long time."
When she had gone he sat in his chair staring ahead of him and thinking.
Yes. She would stick. She had loyalty, loyalty and patience and a rare
humility. It was up to Dick then. And again he faced the possibility of
an opening door into the past, of crowding memories, of confusion and
despair and even actual danger. And out of that, what?
Habit. That was all he had to depend on. The brain was a thing of
habits, like the body; right could be a habit, and so could evil. As a
man thought, so he was. For all of his childhood, and for the last ten
years, Dick's mental habits had been right; his environment had been
love, his teaching responsibility. Even if the door opened, then, there
was only the evil thinking of two or three reckless years to combat,
and the door might never open. Happiness, Lauler had said, would keep it
closed, and Dick was happy.
When at five o'clock the nurse came in with a thermometer he was asleep
in his chair, his mouth slightly open, and snoring valiantly. Hearing
Dick in the lower hall, she went to the head of the stairs, her finger
to her lips.