“You make me feel a drone,” Ellen declared.

Amy gave her a quick, understanding glance.

“You?  Oh, no, Mrs. Burns.  You do the prettiest work in the world, and the most necessary.”

“But yours is fine—­wonderful.”

“Not fine, nor wonderful.  Dr. Burns’s work is that.  Mine is just—­supplementary.”

“But absolutely essential.  How many times has he told me what he has owed you all these years for perfection of detail.  He says he doubts if he himself could secure such perfection if it all depended upon his care.”

Amy Mathewson bent suddenly over a strange looking instrument, whose parts she had been examining before putting them into the bag.  Her fair cheek flushed richly.  “I am glad to give him the best I can do,” she said, quietly, yet Ellen could detect an odd little thrill in her voice.

Within herself Ellen understood the truth, which she had long ago guessed.  And with it came a fresh revelation.  This was the reason why Amy Mathewson could see, unmoved, the departure of Leaver, who had been so closely thrown with her all that strange summer.  With the deep loyalty of a few rare natures, having once given her love, even though she received nothing but friendship in return, she could care for no future which did not include that friendship, dearer than the love of other men.

Ellen was still in the office, held there by a curious fascination of interest in Amy’s rapid, skillful preparations.  It meant so much, this operating at a country house, she explained to Ellen.  It meant the working out of all manner of difficult details, that the final conditions might as closely as possible resemble those which were to be had, ready to hand, in the operating-room of any hospital.

“It’s a serious handicap to a surgeon’s best work,” she asserted, “when he has to do it at a home.  With all my precautions, I can never feel so sure of giving him perfect cleanliness of surroundings.”

“You can, if any one can,” Ellen said, feeling for the first time as she spoke, a curious little twinge of envy of the one whom her husband had long called, with affectionate familiarity, his “right-hand man.”

Often as she had seen the two drive away together it seemed to her to-day that she looked at them with new eyes.  Just as Amy set out the closed hand-bags, with a box and a bundle beside them, and donned hat and driving-coat, the Green Imp came rushing up the road and stopped in front of the house.  Burns ran in, fired half a dozen rapid questions at Amy, nodding his head with approval at her answers, said, “All right, we’re off,” and picked up the hand-bags.  Then he dropped them, snatched off his cap and strode over to his wife.

“We’re in a mess of a hurry,” he apologized, and kissed her as if he were thinking of something else, as he undoubtedly was.  Then he seized the bags, Amy the box and bundle, and the two hurried out.  A moment later Ellen saw the car start, getting under headway in twice its own length, and disappearing down the road in a cloud of dust.