“I’m very, very glad, dear,” Ellen said warmly.  “It’s a real triumph of faith over jealousy, and I don’t wonder you are proud of such a commission.  I know you will bring him through.”

“If I don’t—­but that’s not to be thought of.  It’s a case that calls for extremely delicate surgery and a sure hand, but the ground is plainly mapped out and only some absolutely unforeseen complication is to be dreaded.  And when it comes to those complications—­well, Len, sometimes I think it must be the good Lord who works a man’s brain for him at such crises, and makes it pretty nearly superhuman.  It’s hard to account any other way, sometimes, for the success of the quick decisions you make under necessity that would take a lot of time to work out if you had the time.  Oh, it’s a great game, Len, no doubt of that—­when you win.  And when you lose”—­he stopped short, staring into the shadows where a row of dark-leaved laurel bushes shut away the garden in a soft seclusion—­“well, that’s another story, a heartbreaking story.”

He was silent for a minute, then, in another tone, he spoke confidently:  “But—­this isn’t going to be a story of that kind.  Van Horn has a big place in the city and he’s going to keep it.  And I’m going to spend the rest of this evening making a bit of a tool I’ve had in mind for some time—­that there’s a remote chance I shall need in this case.  But if that remote chance should come—­well, there’s nothing like a state of preparedness, as the military men say.”

“That’s why you succeed, Red; you always are prepared.”

“Not always.  And it’s in the emergency you can’t foresee that heaven comes to the rescue.  You can’t expect it to come to the rescue when you might have foreseen.  ‘Trust the Lord and keep your powder dry’ is a pretty good maxim for the surgical firing line, too—­eh?”

With his arm through his wife’s he paced several times up and down the flowery borders, then went away into the small laboratory and machine shop where he was accustomed to do much of the work which showed only in its final results.  Through the rest of the hot August evening, his attire stripped to the lowest terms compatible with possible unexpected visitors, he laboured with all the enthusiasm characteristic of him at tasks which to another mind would have been drudgery indeed.

To him, at about ten o’clock, came his neighbour and friend, Arthur Chester.  Standing with arms on the sill outside of the lighted window, clad in summer vestments of white and looking as cool and fresh as the man inside looked hot and dirty, Chester attempted to lure the worker forth.

“Win’s serving a lot of cold, wet stuff on our porch,” he announced.  “Ellen’s there, and the Macauleys, and Jord King has just driven up and stopped for a minute.  He’s got Aleck with him and he’s pleased as Punch because he’s rigged a contrivance so that Aleck can drive himself with one hand.  What do you think of that?”