The doctor looked up, and his eyes were very tender; his smile made me wonder.  With a swift, friendly hand he patted the rougher hand of the other.  And it was at this opportune moment that Mary Magdalen led around a corner of Hynds House no less personages than Mrs. Haile and Miss Martha Hopkins.  Their eyes fell upon Doctor Richard Geddes.  They looked at each other.  They looked at Alicia and me.  And I knew their thoughts:  “Sirens, both of you!” said Miss Hopkins’s eyes.

“How do you do, Doctor Geddes!” said both ladies, as demurely as cats. I should have felt like a boy caught stealing jam.  He went right on planting bulbs.

“Hello, Martha.  What’s on the carpet now?” he greeted that lady, airily.  “Writing another paper on ‘The Ironic Note in Chivalry’?  How about ‘The Effect of the Pre-Raphaelites upon the Feeble-minded’?  Or is it the ‘Relation of the Child to Its Mother,’ this time?”

“You will have your little joke, Doctor,” smiled Miss Hopkins, a dish-faced blonde with a cultured expression.

“Joke?” The doctor stared up at her.  “Joke?  Gad, I’d like to believe it!” He turned to Alicia and me, politely:  “Miss Hopkins,” he informed us, “moves among us clothed in white samite.  She is our center of culture; Hyndsville revolves around her.”

He went on putting a bulb in the place prepared for it.  His eyebrows twitched slightly, but his mouth was smileless; Miss Hopkins was smiling, and not at all displeased.  Mrs. Haile was bland and blank, as befits a minister’s wife.  Alicia’s eyes were downcast, but a wicked dimple came and went in her cheek.  She looked ravishingly pretty, the bright hair breaking into curls about her temples, her young face colored like a rose.  I do not blame Doctor Richard Geddes for stopping in his work to stare at her with unabashed pleasure, but I do not think it was diplomatic.

Mrs. Haile apologized for calling when we were so very busy.  They had just stopped in passing, because they were reorganizing their missionary society and wanted to see if they couldn’t interest us in the good work.  Their day-school in Mozambique needed another teacher, and their hospital in Bechuanaland had to have more beds.

Doctor Geddes got to his feet, slapped our garden soil from his knees, and shook his tawny mane.  His eyes were no longer sweet.

“Miss Smith and Miss Gaines, thank you for the opportunity of playing in the sand in pleasant company.  Mrs. Haile, Miss Hopkins, I go to attend some home-grown niggers who of course don’t need a hospital, nor even a decent school, in our Christian midst.  Ladies, good afternoon!” He made a fleering motion of the hand and was gone.  Mrs. Haile and Miss Hopkins smiled indulgently.  Evidently, Doctor Geddes was one brother they were willing to forgive though he offended them until seventy times seven.

Alicia and Miss Martha Hopkins walked down the garden path together and Mrs. Haile fell into step with me.  In a low voice she thanked me, hurriedly, for having dropped that dreadful suit.  And were we—­she hesitated—­were we going to be regular communicants?