This was discouraging, but Arthur tried again.  “You like it?”

“I love it,” said she, and now her eyes were a delight.  “It makes me hate to go to bed at night, and eager to get up in the morning.  And that means really living, doesn’t it?”

“A man like me must seem to you a petty sort of creature.”

“Oh, I haven’t any professional haughtiness,” was her laughing reply.  “One kind of work seems to me just as good as another.  It’s the spirit of the workman that makes the only differences.”

“That’s it,” said Arthur, with a humility which he thought genuine and which was perhaps not wholly false.  “I don’t seem to be able to give my heart to my work.”

“I fancy you’ll give it attention hereafter,” suggested Madelene.  She had dressed the almost healed finger and was dexterously rebandaging it.  She was necessarily very near to him, and from her skin there seemed to issue a perfumed energy that stimulated his nerves.  Their eyes met.  Both smiled and flushed.

“That wasn’t very kind—­that remark,” said he.

“What’s all this?” broke in the sharp voice of the doctor.

Arthur started guiltily, but Madelene, without lifting her eyes from her task, answered:  “Mr. Ranger didn’t want to be kept waiting.”

“She’s trying to steal my practice away from me!” cried Schulze.  He looked utterly unlike his daughter at first glance, but on closer inspection there was an intimate resemblance, like that between the nut and its rough, needle-armored shell.  “Well, I guess she hasn’t botched it.”  This in a pleased voice, after an admiring inspection of the workmanlike bandage.  “Come again to-morrow, young man.”

Arthur bowed to Madelene and somehow got out into the street.  He was astonished at himself and at the world.  He had gone drearily into that office out of a dreary world; he had issued forth light of heart and delighted with the fresh, smiling, interesting look of the shaded streets and the green hedges and lawns and flower beds.  “A fine old town,” he said to himself.  “Nice, friendly people—­and the really right sort.  As soon as I’m done with the rough stretch I’ve got just ahead of me, I’m going to like it.  Let me see—­one of those girls was named Walpurga and one was named—­Madelene—­this one, I’m sure—­Yes!” And he could hear the teacher calling the roll, could hear the alto voice from the serious face answer to “Madelene Schulze,” could hear the light voice from the face that was always ready to burst into smiles answer to “Walpurga Schulze.”

But though it was quite unnecessary he, with a quite unnecessary show of carelessness, asked Del which was which.  “The black one is Madelene,” replied she, and her ability to speak in such an indifferent tone of such an important person surprised him.  “The blonde is Walpurga.  I used to detest Madelene.  She always treated me as if I hadn’t any sense.”

“Well, you can’t blame her for that, Del,” said Arthur.  “You’ve been a great deal of a fool in your day—­before you blossomed out.  Do you remember the time Dory called you down for learning things to show off, and how furious you got?”