When Adler heard Bennett's uncertain steps upon the stairs and the sound of Lloyd's voice speaking to him and urging that there was no hurry, and that he was to take but one step at a time, he wheeled swiftly about from the windows of the glass-room, where he had been watching the October breeze stirring the crimson and yellow leaves in the orchard, and drew back his master's chair from the breakfast table and stood behind it expectantly, his eyes watching the door.
Lloyd held back the door, and Bennett came in, leaning heavily on Dr. Pitts's shoulder. Adler stiffened upon the instant as if in answer to some unheard bugle- call, and when Bennett had taken his seat, pushed his chair gently to the table and unfolded his napkin with a flourish as though giving a banner to the wind. Pitts almost immediately left the room, but Lloyd remained supervising Bennett's breakfast, pouring his milk, buttering his toast, and opening his eggs.
"Coffee?" suddenly inquired Bennett. Lloyd shook her head.
"Not for another week."
Bennett looked with grim disfavour upon the glass of milk that Lloyd had placed at his elbow.
"Such slop!" he growled. "Why not a little sugar and warm water, and be done with it? Lloyd, I can't drink this stuff any more. Why, it's warm yet!" he exclaimed aggrievedly and with deep disgust, abruptly setting down the glass.
"Why, of course it is," she answered; "we brought the cow here especially for you, and the boy has just done milking her—and it's not slop."
"Slop! slop!" declared Bennett. He picked up the glass again and looked at her over the rim.
"I'll drink this stuff this one more time to please you," he said. "But I promise you this will be the last time. You needn't ask me again. I have drunk enough milk the past three weeks to support a foundling hospital for a year."
Invariably, since the period of his convalescence began, Bennett made this scene over his hourly glass of milk, and invariably it ended by his gulping it down at nearly a single swallow.
Adler brought in the mail and the morning paper. Three letters had come for Lloyd, and for Bennett a small volume on "Recent Arctic Research and Exploration," sent by his publisher with a note to the effect that, as the latest authority on the subject, Bennett was sure to find it of great interest. In an appendix, inserted after the body of the book had been made up, the Freja expedition and his own work were briefly described. Lloyd put her letters aside, and, unfolding the paper, said, "I'll read it while you eat your breakfast. Have you everything you want? Did you drink your milk—all of it?" But out of the corner of her eye she noted that Adler was chuckling behind the tray that he held to his face, and with growing suspicion she leaned forward and peered about among the breakfast things. Bennett had hidden his glass behind the toast-rack.
"And it's only two-thirds empty," she declared. "Ward, why will you be such a boy?"
"Oh, well," he grumbled, and without more ado drank off the balance.
"Now I'll read to you if you have everything you want. Adler, I think you can open one of those windows; it's so warm out of doors."
While he ate his breakfast of toast, milk, and eggs Lloyd skimmed through the paper, reading aloud everything she thought would be of interest to him. Then, after a moment, her eye was caught and held by a half-column article expanded from an Associated Press despatch.
"Oh!" she cried, "listen to this!" and continued: "'Word has been received at this place of the safe arrival of the arctic steamship Curlew at Tasiusak, on the Greenland coast, bearing eighteen members of the Duane-Parsons expedition. Captain Duane reports all well and an uneventful voyage. It is his intention to pass the winter at Tasiusak, collecting dogs and also Esquimau sledges, which he believes superior to European manufacture for work in rubble-ice, and to push on with the Curlew in the spring as soon as Smith Sound shall be navigable. This may be later than Captain Duane supposes, as the whalers who have been working in the sound during the past months bring back news of an unusually early winter and extraordinary quantities of pack-ice both in the sound itself and in Kane Basin. This means a proportionately late open season next year, and the Curlew's departure from Tasiusak may be considerably later than anticipated. It is considered by the best arctic experts an unfortunate circumstance that Captain Duane elected to winter south of Cape Sabine, as the condition of the ice in Smith Sound can never be relied upon nor foretold. Should the entrance to the sound still be encumbered with ice as late as July, which is by no means impossible, Captain Duane will be obliged to spend another winter at Tasiusak or Upernvick, consuming alike his store of provisions and the patience of his men.'"
There was a silence when Lloyd finished reading. Bennett chipped at the end of his second egg.
"Well?" she said at length.
"Well," returned Bennett, "what's all that to me?"
"It's your work," she answered almost vehemently.
"No, indeed. It's Duane's work."
"What do you mean?" "Let him try now."
"And you?" exclaimed Lloyd, looking intently at him.
"My dear girl, I had my chance and failed. Now—" he raised a shoulder indifferently—"now, I don't care much about it. I've lost interest."
"I don't believe you," she cried energetically; "you of all men." Behind Bennett's chair she had a momentary glimpse of Adler, who had tucked his tray under his arm and was silently applauding in elaborate pantomime. She saw his lips form the words "That's it; that's right. Go right ahead."
"Besides, I have my book to do, and, besides that, I'm an invalid—an invalid who drinks slop."
"And you intend to give it all up—your career?"
"Well—if I should, what then?" Suddenly he turned to her abruptly. "I should not think you would want me to go again. Do you urge me to go?"
Lloyd made a sudden little gasp, and her hand involuntarily closed upon his as it rested near her on the table.
"Oh, no!" she cried. "Oh, no, I don't! You are right. It's not your work now."
"Well, then," muttered Bennett as though the question was forever settled.
Lloyd turned to her mail, and one after another slit the envelopes, woman fashion, with a shell hairpin. But while she was glancing over the contents of her letters Bennett began to stir uneasily in his place. From time to time he stopped eating and shot a glance at Lloyd from under his frown, noting the crisp, white texture of her gown and waist, the white scarf with its high, tight bands about the neck, the tiny, golden buttons in her cuffs, the sombre, ruddy glow of her cheeks, her dull-blue eyes, and the piles and coils of her bronze-red hair. Then, abruptly, he said:
"Adler, you can go."
Adler saluted and withdrew.
"Whom are your letters from?" Bennett demanded by way of a beginning.
Lloyd replaced the hairpin in her hair, answering:
"From Dr. Street, from Louise Douglass, and from—Mr. Campbell.”
"Hum! well, what do they say? Dr. Street and—Louise Douglass?"
"Dr. Street asks me to take a very important surgical case as soon as I get through here, 'one of the most important and delicate, as well as one of the most interesting, operations in his professional experience.' Those are his words. Louise writes four pages, but she says nothing; just chatters."
"And Campbell?" Bennett indicated with his chin the third rather voluminous letter at Lloyd's elbow. "He seems to have written rather more than four pages. What does he say? Does he 'chatter' too?"
Lloyd smoothed back her hair from one temple.
"H'm—no. He says—something. But never mind what he says. Ward, I must be going back to the City. You don't need a nurse any more."
"What's that?" Bennett's frown gathered on the instant, and with a sharp movement of the head that was habitual to him he brought his one good eye to bear upon her.
Lloyd repeated her statement, answering his remonstrance and expostulation with:
"You are almost perfectly well, and it would not be at all—discreet for me to stay here an hour longer than absolutely necessary. I shall go back to-morrow or next day."
"But, I tell you, I am still very sick. I'm a poor, miserable, shattered wreck.”
He made a great show of coughing in hollow, lamentable tones.
"Listen to that, and last night I had a high fever, and this morning I had a queer sort of pain about here—" he vaguely indicated the region of his chest. "I think I am about to have a relapse."
"Nonsense! You can't frighten me at all."
"Oh, well," he answered easily, "I shall go with you—that is all. I suppose you want to see me venture out in such raw, bleak weather as this—with my weak lungs."
"Your weak lungs? How long since?"
"Well, I—I've sometimes thought my lungs were not very strong."
"Why, dear me, you poor thing; I suppose the climate at Kolyuchin Bay was a trifle too bracing—"
"What does Campbell say?"
"—and the diet too rich for your blood—"
"What does Campbell say?"
"—and perhaps you did overexert—"
"Lloyd Searight, what does Mr. Campbell say in that—"
"He asks me to marry him."
"To mum—mar—marry him? Well, damn his impudence!"
"Mr. Campbell is an eminently respectable and worthy gentleman."
"Oh, well, I don't care. Go! Go, marry Mr. Campbell. Be happy. I forgive you both. Go, leave me to die alone."
"Sir, I will go. Forget that you ever knew an unhappy wom—female, whose only fault was that she loved you."
"Go! and sometimes think of me far away on the billow and drop a silent tear—I
say, how are you going to answer Campbell's letter?"
"Just one word—'Come.'"
"Lloyd, be serious. This is no