Frenziedly the Senior Surgeon pushed back his chair, and jumped to his feet.  The expression on his face was neither smile nor frown, nor war nor peace, nor any other human expression that had ever puckered there before.

“God!” he said.  “This gives me the willies!” and strode tempestuously from the room.

Out in his own work-shop fortunately,—­whatever the grotesque new pinkness,—­whatever the grotesque new perkiness—­his great free walking-spaces had not been interfered with.  Slamming his door triumphantly behind him, he resumed once more the monotonous pace-pace-pace that had characterized for eighteen years his first night’s return to—­the obligations of civilization.

Sharply around the corner of his old battered desk the little path started,—­wanly along the edge of his dingy book-shelves the little path furrowed,—­wistfully at the deep bay-window where his favorite lilac bush budded whitely for his departure, and rusted brownly for his return, the little path faltered,—­and went on again,—­on and on and on,—­into the alcove where his instruments glistened,—­up to the fireplace where his college trophy-cups tarnished!  Listlessly the Senior Surgeon re-commenced his yearly vigil.  Up and down,—­up and down,—­round and round,—­on and on and on,—­through interminable dusks to unattainable dawns,—­a glutted, bacchanalian Soul sweating its own way back to sanctity and leanness!  Nerves always were in that vigil,—­raw, rattling nerves clamoring vociferously to be repacked in their sedatives.  Thirst also was in that vigil,—­no mere whimpering tickle of the palate, but a drought of the tissues,—­a consuming fire of the bones!  Hurt pride was also there, and festering humiliation!

But more rasping, this particular night, than nerves, more poignant than thirst, more dangerously excitative even than remorse, hunger rioted in him,—­hunger, the one worst enemy of the Senior Surgeon’s cause,—­the simple, silly, no-account,—­gnawing,—­drink-provocative hunger of an empty stomach.  And ’one other hunger was also there,—­a sudden fierce new lust for Life and Living,—­a passion bare of love yet pure of wantonness,—­a passion primitive,—­protective,—­inexorably proprietary,—­engendered strangely in that one mad, suspicious moment at the edge of the summer house when every outraged male instinct in him had leaped to prove that—­love or no love—­the woman was—­his.  Up and down,—­up and down,—­round and round,—­eight o’clock found the Senior Surgeon still pacing.

At half past eight the young Wall Paper Man came to say good-by to him.

“As long as Sister won’t be alone any more, I guess I’ll be moving on,” beamed the Wall Paper Man.  “There’s a dance at home Saturday night.  And I’ve got a girl of my own!” he confided genially.

“Come again,” urged the Senior Surgeon.  “Come again when you can stay longer!”

With one honest prayer in stock, and at least two purely automatic social speeches of this sort, no man needs to flounder altogether hopelessly for words in any ordinary emergency of life.  Thus with no more mental interruption than the two-minute break in time, the Senior Surgeon then resumed his bitter-thoughted pacing.