CHAPTER XVI

After this James encountered a strange state of things:  the semblance of happiness, which almost deceived him as to its reality.

Clemency was as loving as she had ever been.  Gordon congratulated James upon the reconciliation.  “I knew the child could never hold out, and it was Annie Lipton,” he said.  James admitted that Annie Lipton might have been the straw which turned the balance.  He knew that Clemency had not told Gordon of her conviction that he had given the final dose of morphine to her aunt.  Everything now went on as before.  Clemency suddenly became awake to Emma’s petty persecutions of James, and they ceased.  James one day could not help overhearing a conversation between the two.  He was in the stable, and the kitchen windows were open.  He heard only a few words.  “You don’t mean to say you are goin’ to hev him?” said Emma in her strident voice.

“No, I am not,” returned Clemency’s sweet, decided one.

“What be you goin’ with him again for then?”

James knew how the girl blushed at that, but she answered with spirit.  “That is entirely my own affair, Emma,” she said, “and as long as Doctor Elliot remains under this roof, and pays for it, too, he must be treated decently.  You don’t pass him things, you don’t fill his lamp.  Now you must treat him exactly as you did before, or I shall tell Uncle Tom.”

“You won’t tell him why?” said Emma, and there was alarm in her voice, for she adored Gordon.

“Did you ever know me to go from one to another in such a way?” asked Clemency.  “You know if I told Uncle Tom, he would not put up with it a minute.  He thinks the world of Doctor Elliot.”

“It’s awful queer how men folks can be imposed on,” said Emma.

“That has nothing to do with it,” Clemency said.  “You must treat Doctor Elliot respectfully, Emma.”

“I’m jest as good as he be,” said Emma resentfully.

“Well, what if you are?  He’s as good as you, isn’t he?  And he treats you civilly.  He always has.”

“I’m a good deal better than he be,” Emma went on irascibly.  “I wouldn’t have gone and went, and—­”

“Hush!” ordered Clemency in a frightened voice.  “Emma, you must do as I say.”

James drove out of the yard and heard no more, but after that he had no fault to find with Emma, so far as her service was concerned.  It is true that she gave him malignant glances, but she made him comfortable, albeit unwillingly.  It was fortunate for him that she did so, or he would have found his position almost unbearable.  Doctor Gordon relaxed again into his state of apathetic gloom.  His strength also seemed to wane.  Almost the whole practice devolved upon James.  Gordon seemed less and less interested even in extreme cases.  Georgie K. also lost his power over him.  Now and then of an evening he came, but Gordon, save to offer him a cigar, took scarcely any notice of him.  One evening Georgie K. made a motion to James behind Gordon’s back when he took leave, and James made an excuse to follow him out.  In the drive Georgie K. took James by the arm, and the young man felt him tremble.  “What ails him?” asked Georgie K.