“Can’t I?” Leaver answered, coolly.  “Come along and see.  It’s a chance to give the patient the opinion of an eminent specialist just back from Berlin.”

“I’m no specialist.”

“Aren’t you?  I think you are.  Specialist in human nature, which, if the reports of this case are true, is the particular sort of diagnosis called for.  Trust me, Red, and—­put on your gloves!”

Burns had grinned over this suggestion.  He hated gloves and seldom wore them, but out of consideration for his friend—­and Baltimore—­he extracted a pair of irreproachable ones, fresh from Berlin, and donned them, with only a derisive word for the uselessness of externals as practised by city professionals.

Left alone with Charlotte, in a pleasant corner of a stately library, by an open window through which she had watched the departure of the two men in the landau, Ellen turned to her.

“I can’t tell you,” she said, “how happy it makes me to see your happiness.  John Leaver is so exactly the man, out of all the world, who is the husband for you.  From all I know of you both, it seems to me I never saw a pair more perfectly mated.”

“I’m glad it looks so from the outside,” breathed Charlotte, softly.  She too had watched the departing pair; waving her hand as her husband, under the electric light at the entrance, had turned to lift his hat and signal farewell.  She still stood by the window, through which the soft air of the May night touched her warm cheek and stirred the lace about her white shoulders.  “From the inside—­O Len,—­I can’t tell you how it looks!  I didn’t know there was such glory in the world!”

* * * * *

“What do you think this fellow has done?” cried Red Pepper Burns, returning with his host at midnight.  He towered in the doorway, looking in at his wife and Charlotte.  From over his shoulder Leaver looked in also, smiling.  “He’s arranged for me to operate on one of his most critical cases to-morrow morning at his clinic.  The country surgeon!  Did you ever hear of such effrontery?  I may be ridden out of town on a rail by to-morrow noon!”

“Hear the man!  He looks like a country surgeon, doesn’t he?” challenged Leaver, advancing.  “London-made clothes, Bond-street neckwear, scarfpin from Rome, general air of confidence and calm.  I assure you I was nowhere, when the family of my patient saw the lately arrived specialist from Berlin.”

“It’s not on that patient I’m to do violence,” Burns explained, at Ellen’s look of astonishment.  “He’s just mixing things up on purpose.  It’s a charity case for mine—­but none the less honour, on that account.  I have a chance to try out a certain new method, adapted from one I saw used for the first time abroad.  If it doesn’t work I’ll—­drop several pegs in my own estimation, and in self-confidence.”

“It will work,” said Leaver, “in your hands.  The country surgeon is going to surprise one or two of my colleagues to-morrow.”