By afternoon the ache in John Lansing’s head had reached a point where he gladly lay quietly in the hammock and submitted to be waited on by two devoted feminine slaves.  The doctor came over to see him after supper, and found him in a high state of restlessness.  He got him to bed, stayed with him until he fell into an uneasy slumber, then left him in charge of Celia, and came so quietly down to the front porch again that he startled Charlotte, who lay in the hammock Lanse had lately quitted.

“Do you need me?” she asked eagerly.  “I thought Lanse would rather have Celia with him, and I was sure she wanted to take care of him, so I stayed.  But I’m ready, if I’m wanted.”

“You’re wanted,” returned Doctor Churchill, gently, “but not up-stairs just now.  Lie still in that hammock; let me fix the pillows a bit.  Yes, do, please.  Do you know it’s positively the first time I’ve seen you appearing to rest since I’ve known you?”

“Why, Doctor Churchill!”

“It’s absolutely so.  You’re growing thin under the cares you’ve assumed.  And I suspect, besides the cares, you keep yourself busy when you ought to be resting.  Am I right?”

Charlotte coloured in the twilight of the porch, which the thick vines of the wisteria screened from the electric light on the corner, except for a few feet at the end nearest the door.  She had been working harder than ever all the spring over her designs for Chrystler & Company, and her cheeks were of a truth somewhat less round and her colour less vivid of hue.  She was tired, although she had not owned it, even to herself.

“You see, Doctor Churchill,” she said, slowly, “until father and mother went away I had been the lazy one of the family, the good-for-nothing—­the drone—­and I’ve not yet learned to work in the quiet way my sister does, which accomplishes so much without any fuss.  Now that she can get about again she does twice as much as I do, but she doesn’t make such a clatter of tools, and doesn’t get the credit for being as busy as I.”

“I see.  Of course I had a feeling all along that this dish-washing and dinner-getting and baby-tending were mere pretense, and I’m relieved to have you own up to it!”

Charlotte laughed.  “After all, one doesn’t like to be taken at one’s own estimate,” she admitted.  “I confess I feel a pang to have you agree with me, even in jest.”

“Do you know,” he said, abruptly, after an instant’s silence, “you gave me great pleasure this morning?”

“I?  How?”

“By the way you stood by your brother.”

“Oh!” said Charlotte, astonished.  “But I didn’t do anything.

“Nothing at all, except keep cool and hold steady.  Those are the hardest things a surgeon can set a novice at, you know.”

“But you needed me; and Mrs. Fields was out.  You didn’t know that, but I did.  And I don’t think I’m one of the fainting-away kind.”

“No, you can stand fire.  I think sometimes—­do you know what I think?”