Gordon spoke.  “How do you feel?” he asked of the man, who evidently heard and understood, but did not reply.  He simply made a little motion of facial muscles, of shoulders, of his whole body under the bed-clothes, which indicated rage and impatience.

“Does that place on your cheek burn?” asked Gordon.

Again there was no answer, this time not even any motion.

“Have you any pain?” asked Gordon.  The man lay motionless.  “Is there any one in the parlor?” Gordon asked abruptly of Georgie K.

“No, Doc.  You can go right in there.”

Gordon beckoned to James, and the two went downstairs, and entered the room of the wax flowers and the stuffed canary.

“It looks like erysipelas,” Gordon said with no preface.

James nodded.

“All I have done so far, in the absence of any positive proof of the truth of that diagnosis, is to apply what you will think an old woman’s remedy, but I have known it to give good results in light cases, and I did not like to resort to the more strenuous methods until I was sure of my ground, for fear of complications.  I applied a little mutton tallow, and that was all, but the inflammation has increased since I saw him.  It now looks to me like a clearly defined case of erysipelas.”

“It does to me,” said James.

“So far—­the—­wound in the throat seems to be doing well,” said Gordon gloomily.  Then he looked at the younger physician with an odd, helpless expression.  “His life must be saved,” said he.  “Which do you prefer of the two methods of treating the disease—­that is, of the two primary ones?  Of course, there are methods innumerable.  I may have grown rusty in my country practice.  Do you prefer the leaches, the nitrate of silver, the low diet, or the reverse?”

“I think I prefer the reverse.”

“Well, you may be right,” said Gordon, “and yet you have to consider that this is a man in full vigor,” he added, “that presumably he has considerable reserve strength upon which to draw.  Still if you prefer the other treatment—­”

“I have seen very good results from it,” said James.  He was becoming more and more astonished at the older man’s helpless, almost appealing, manner toward himself.  “What is the man’s name?” he asked.

“I don’t know what name he has given here,” Gordon replied evasively.  “I will tell you later on what his name is.”

Suddenly the parlor door was flung open, and a woman appeared.  She was middle-aged, very large, clad in black raiment, which had an effect of sliding and slipping from her when she moved.  She kept clutching at the buttons of her coat, which did not quite meet over her full front.  She brought together the ends of a black fur boa, she reached constantly for the back of her skirts, and gave them a firm tug which relaxed the next moment.  Her decent black bonnet was askew, her large face was flushed.  She had been a strapping, handsome country girl once; now she was almost indecent in her involuntary exuberance of coarse femininity.