Winifred laughed out with anticipation.  “Oh, how good that will taste!” she exclaimed, hugging herself in her own pretty arms.  “It is just what we want, after wearing ourselves out being agreeable.  Who but Red would ever think of such a thing, at this time of night?”

“I believe it will taste good,” and Martha Macauley laid her head back at last against the encompassing comfort of the chair she sat in, and for the first time relaxed from the duties of hostess and the succeeding defence of her hospitality.

“Don’t you want my help, Red?” his wife asked him, at his elbow.

He turned and looked at the gray gauze gown.  “I should say not,” said he.  “Lie back, all of you, and take your ease, which you have richly earned, while I play chef.  Nothing will suit me better.  I’m boiling over with restrained emotion, and this will work it off.  Lie back, while I imagine that it’s one of the male guests who bored me whom I’m grilling now.  I’ll do him to a turn!”

He proceeded with his operations, working the quick fire of cannel which Macauley had started into a glowing bed of hot coals.  He improvised from the andirons a rack for his broiler, and set the steak to cooking.  While he heated plates, sliced bread, and brought knives, forks, and napkins, he kept an experienced eye upon his broiler, and saw that it was continually turned and shifted, in order to get the best results.  And presently he was laying his finished product upon the hot platter, seasoning it, applying a rich dressing of butter, and, at last, preparing with a flourish of the knife to carve it.

It was at this to-be-expected moment that the office-bell rang.  Miss Mathewson summoned her employer, and Burns stayed only to serve his guests, before he left them hungrily consuming his offering and bewailing his departure.

“Only,” Martha Macauley said, “we ought to be thankful that for once he got through an evening without being called out.”

Ellen had placed her husband’s portion where it would keep hot for him, and the others had nearly finished consuming their own, when Burns came in.  He made for the fire, amid the greetings and praises of his guests, and served his own plate with the portion remaining on the platter, covering it liberally with the rich gravy.  Then he cut and buttered two thick slices of bread and laid them on the plate.

“Sit down, sit down, man!” urged Macauley, as his host rose to his feet.  “We’re waiting to see you enjoy this magnificent result of your cookery.  It’s the best steak I’ve had in a blue moon.”

“If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take mine in the office,” Burns explained.  “Can’t leave my patient just yet.”  And he went away again, carrying his plate, napkin over his arm.

Five minutes later Macauley, putting down his empty plate, got up and strolled out into the hall.  A moment afterward he was heard abruptly closing the office door, saying, “Oh, I beg pardon!” Then he returned to the company.  He was whistling softly as he came, his hands in his pockets and his eyebrows lifted.