“Do you like sending out bills so well as that?” Ellen asked, incredulous.

“I like anything that means being at work again, without having to play that I’m a lady of leisure at any moment that anybody wants my company.  I like to have things methodical and systematic.  I don’t even mind sending out bills, when I know they should be sent.”

She stirred about the office, getting out her typewriter and oiling it, while the two talked of various things.  Her whole manner was consistent with her words:  she seemed to be full of the very joy of living.  It occurred to Ellen once to wonder if, by any possibility, this could be the result of expectation of future continuance of her friendship with Leaver.  But something happened presently which, though but a simple incident enough, and all in the day’s routine, made any such supposition seem most unlikely.

The telephone bell rang.  Ellen saw Amy’s face change at the first sound of her questioner’s voice, with that subtle change which sometimes tells more than the person engaged in this form of communication realizes.

“Yes, Dr. Burns,” she said.  “Yes ...  Yes ...  Yes ...  Yes, I can have everything ready in an hour ...  I will ...  I won’t forget one thing....  Yes ...  Good-bye!”

Not an illuminating set of replies, given at long intervals which evidently spelled instructions from the other end of the wire.  But Amy’s voice was eager, her concise replies by no means veiled that fact, and Ellen could read, as plainly as if Amy had said it, that the voice which spoke to her was the one of all voices, as it had been for so long, which could give the commands she loved to obey.

She turned from the desk and looked at Ellen with the same animated expression of face.  But even as she explained, she was taking instruments from their cases, setting out certain hand-bags, and preparing to fill them.

“It is an emergency case—­operation—­out in the country.  Impossible to take the patient to the hospital; everything must be made ready on the spot.  Dr. Burns is to come for me in an hour.  He will let me stay with the case.  It’s work, Mrs. Burns; real work again, at last!”

“You extraordinary girl!  A debutante, going to a party again, after enforced confinement at home, couldn’t be gayer about it.  I knew you loved your work, but I didn’t know you loved it like that!”

“Didn’t you?” Her hands moving swiftly, she seemed not to stop and think what was going to be wanted, she went from one preparation to another with swift, sure knowledge.  “I’m not sure I did, myself, until I had to stop and take what was really just a long vacation, with hardly a thing to do.  Vacations are very pleasant—­for a while—­but they may last too long.”

“Evidently Dr. Leaver thought so, too.  He seemed ready enough for work again.”

“Of course he was.  And work—­and only work—­will put him quite back where he was before the breakdown.  I fully believe, Mrs. Burns, that labour is a condition of healthy life.  And of the two evils, too much labour or too much idleness, the latter is the greater.”