“What are you talking about?” indignantly asked Constance.

“Tink Ise oin’t onter youse curves?  Tink Ise don’t hear wot de nurse loidies says?  Gee!  Ise know w’y youse so fond of comin’ here.”

“Why do I come here?” asked Constance, in a voice full of warning.

The tone was wasted on the boy.

“’Cause youse dead gone on de doc.”

“I am sorry you don’t know better than to talk like that, Swot,” said the girl, quietly, “because I wanted to be good to you, and now you have put an end to my being able to be.  You will have to get some one else to read to you after this.  Good-bye.”  She passed her hand kindly over his forehead, and turned to find that Dr. Armstrong was standing close behind her, and must have overheard more or less of what had been said.  Without a word, and looking straight before her, Constance walked away.

Once out of the hospital, her conscience was not altogether easy; and though she kept away the next day, she sent her footman with the usual gift of fruits and other edibles; and this she did again on the morning following.

“Of course he didn’t mean to be so atrociously impertinent,” she sighed, in truth missing what had come to be such an amusing and novel way of using up some of each twenty-four hours.  “But I can’t, in self-respect, go to him any more.”

These explanations were confided to her double in the mirror, as she eyed the effect of a new gown, donned for a dinner; and while she still studied the eminently satisfactory total, she was interrupted by a knock at the door, and her maid brought her a card the footman handed in.

Constance took it, looked astonished, then frowned slightly, and finally glanced again in the mirror.  Without a word, she took her gloves and fan from the maid, and descended to the drawing-room.

“Good-evening, Dr. Armstrong,” she said, coolly.

“I have come here—­I have intruded on you, Miss Durant,” awkwardly and hurriedly began the doctor, “because nothing else would satisfy Swot McGarrigle.  I trust you will understand that I—­He—­he is to undergo an operation, and—­well, I told him it was impossible, but he still begged me so to ask you, that I hadn’t the heart to refuse him.”

“An operation!” cried Constance.

“Don’t be alarmed.  It’s really nothing serious.  He—­Perhaps you may have noticed how restless and miserable he has been lately.  It is due, we have decided, to one of the nerves of the leg having been lacerated, and so I am going to remove it, to end the suffering, which is now pretty keen.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” exclaimed the girl, regretfully.  “I didn’t dream of it, and so was hard on him, and said I wouldn’t come any more.”

“He has missed your visits very much, Miss Durant, and we found it very hard to comfort him each morning, when only your servant came.”

“Has he really?  I thought they were nothing to him.”