His brows knit in a frown.  “You think I’m prescribing something I can’t administer?  But I think that he will grow so used to having her with him, while he actually needs her as a nurse, that, when he gets about and finds her still here, he will quite naturally fall into the way of seeking her company.”

“Perhaps he will.  At any rate, she is very welcome to stay, as long as you want her for the experiment.”

“You are an angel!  I realize that I shouldn’t have made such an arrangement without asking your permission.  To tell the truth, I’m so used to—­”

He stopped short, with a little ejaculation of dismay.

“I understand, dear,” she said quickly.  “You are so used to being master of the house that you forgot the new conditions.  It’s all right—­you are still master—­particularly in everything that has to do with your profession.  And if you can find a cure for poor Dr. Leaver’s broken spirit I shall be as happy as you.”

“It’s going to make you a lot of trouble,—­two guests in the house, for an indefinite period.  You see, I’m just waking up to what I’m asking of you.  It’s precisely like my impetuosity to create a situation I can’t retreat from, and then wonder at my own nerve.  Will it bother you very much?”

“It’s what we’re here for, isn’t it?” She smiled at him as he turned and put both arms around her, kneeling beside her in the shadow of the vines.  “It’s certainly what you are here for, and I am your partner, or I’m not much of a wife.”

“Bless you, you darling; you surely are.  And such a partner!  If Leaver had one like you—­he wouldn’t be where he is.  But he can’t have you,” he repeated, and held her closer.  “I couldn’t see you reading to him and walking with him, and being a friend to him,—­I couldn’t see it, that’s all, no matter how much good you might do him.  Queer—­I didn’t know that was in me—­that feeling.  Macauley calls me a Turk.  I guess that’s what I am.  It’s a primitive sort of instinct, scoffed at in these days when half the married women are playing with fire in the shape of other women’s husbands.  But I hate that sort of thing—­have always hated it.  I’m a Turk, all right.  Do you mind?”

“No, I don’t think I mind,” she answered softly.  “But I want your perfect trust, Red.”

“You have it, oh, you have it, love.  No possible question of that.  And I don’t mean that I’m not willing to have Leaver get what he can of your dearness, as he’s bound to feel it, in our home.  But this comrade business, which I feel he’s so much in need of,—­that’s what he can’t have from you.  And if he stayed on, and there was no other woman about, why, quite naturally—­”

He stopped.  Then, as she was silent, “You won’t misunderstand me, little wife?” he begged.  “I’ve seen so much of the other thing, you know.  Can I be—­enough for you?”

“Quite enough, Red.”

After a minute he went back to the thing which absorbed him.  “I can see you haven’t much confidence in my plan for Amy’s helping him?”