Burns laughed.  “Ye gods!  Is that what I’ve been—­a bridegroom?  I’m glad I didn’t realize it; it would have made me act queerer than I have.  Well, it’s been a happy time—­a gloriously happy time, but—­”

He paused and looked down at her for an instant, rather as if he hesitated to say what was in his mind.  He did not know that he had already said it.

But she knew it, and she smiled at him, understanding—­and sympathizing.  “But you are glad you are on your way back to your work,” said she.  “So am I.”

He drew a relieved breath.  “Bless you,” said he.  “I’m glad you are—­if it’s true.  It’s only that I’m so refreshed by this wonderful fortnight that I—­well—­I want to go to work again—­work with all my might.  I feel as if I could do the best work of my life.  That doesn’t mean that I don’t dread to see the first patient, for I do.  Whoever he is, I hate the sight of him!  Can you understand?”

She nodded.  “It will be like the first plunge into cold water.  But once in—­”

“That’s it.  Of course, if he happened to be lying on my lawn, all mangled up and calling for me to save his life, I’d welcome the sight of him, poor chap.  But he won’t be interesting, like that.  He’ll be a victim of chronic dyspepsia.  Or worse—­she’ll be a woman who can’t sleep without a dope.  I have to get used to that kind by degrees, after a vacation; I don’t warm up to ’em, on sight.”

“Yet they’re very miserable, some of those patients who are quite able to walk to your office, and very grateful to you if you relieve them, aren’t they?”

Red Pepper chuckled.  “I can foresee,” he said, “that you’re going to take the side of the unhappy patient, from the start—­worse luck for me!  Yes, they’re grateful if I can relieve them, but the trouble is I can’t relieve them—­not the particular class I have in mind.  They won’t do as I order.  And as long as I can’t get them comfortably down in bed, where the nurse and I have the upper hand, they’ll continue to carry out half of my directions—­the half they approve, and neglect the other half—­the really important half, and then come round and tell me I haven’t helped them any—­and why not?  Oh, well—­far be it from me to complain of the routine work, much as I prefer the sort which calls for all the skill and resource I happen to possess.  And the dull part is going to take on a new interest, now, when I can escape from the office into my wife’s quarters, between times, where no patient can follow me.”

She smiled, watching a big cloud, low on the horizon before them, break into fragments and dissolve into blue sky and sunshine.  “I hope,” said she, “to be able to make those quarters attractive.  You remember I haven’t seen them yet—­not even the bare rooms.”

“That’s bothered me a good deal, in spite of the assurance you gave me, when we discussed it by letter.  If I hadn’t been so horribly busy, and had had the faintest notion of what to do with them—­or if you had wanted Martha and Winifred to put them in shape for you—­”