Half proud of the brain, half touched by the heart, he passed on exploringly through the new play-room out into the hall again.

Quite distinctly now through the aperture of the back stairs the kitchen voices came wafting up to him.

“Oh, dear!  Oh, dear!” wailed his Little Girl’s peevish voice.  “Now that—­that Man’s come back again—­I suppose we’ll have to eat in the dining-room—­all the time!”

“‘That Man’ happens to be your darling father!” admonished the White Linen Nurse’s laughing voice.

“Even so,” wailed the Little Girl, “I love you best.”

“Even so,” laughed the White Linen Nurse, “I love you best!”

“Just the same,” cried the Little Girl shrilly, “just the same—­let’s put the cream pitcher way up high somewhere—­so he can’t step in it!”

As though from a head tilted suddenly backward the White Linen Nurse’s laugh rang out in joyous abandon.

Impulsively the Senior Surgeon started to grin.  Then equally impulsively the grin soured on his lips.  So they thought he was clumsy?  Eh?  Resentfully he stared down at his hands,—­those wonderfully dexterous,—­yes, ambidexterous hands that were the aching envy of all his colleagues.  Interruptingly as he stared the voice of the young Wall Paper Man rose buoyantly from the lower hallway.

“Supper’s all ready, sir!” called the cordial voice.

For some inexplainable reason, at that particular moment, almost nothing in the world could have irritated the Senior Surgeon more keenly than to be invited to his own supper,—­in his own house,—­by a stranger.  Fuming with a new sense of injury and injustice he started heavily down the stairs to the dining-room.

Standing patiently behind the Senior Surgeon’s chair with a laudable desire to assist his carving in any possible emergency that might occur, the White Linen Nurse experienced her first direct marital rebuff.

“What do you think this is?  An autopsy?” demanded the Senior Surgeon tartly.  “For Heaven’s sake—­sit down!”

Quite meekly the White Linen Nurse subsided into her place.

The meal that ensued could hardly have been called a success though the room was entrancing,—­the cloth, snow-white—­the silver, radiant,—­the guinea chicken beyond reproach.

Swept and garnished to an alarming degree the young Wall Paper Man presided over the gravy and did his uttermost, innocent country-best to make the Senior Surgeon feel perfectly at home.

Conscientiously, as in the presence of a distinguished stranger, the Little Crippled Girl most palpably from time to time repressed her insatiable desire to build a towering pyramid out of all the salt and pepper shakers she could reach.

Once when the young Wall Paper Man forgot himself to the extent of putting his knife in his mouth, the White Linen Nurse jarred the whole table with the violence of her warning kick.