Perhaps the Frangipanni stimulated him.  Perhaps the overdose deadened his decision to stay away from the hospital.  In any event, that afternoon he betook himself to the hospital, and was fortunate in finding Andover there, to whom he confided the obvious news that he was in town—­and that he would like to see little Ruth for a minute, if it was all right.

Andover told him that little Ruth had been taken to her home a month ago—­and Pete wondered how she could still miss him, as Miss Gray had intimated in her last letter.  And as he wondered he saw light—­not a great light, but a faint ray which was reflected in his face as he asked Andover when Miss Gray would be relieved from duty, and if it would be possible to see her then.

Andover thought it might be possible, and suggested that he let Miss Gray know of Pete’s presence; but some happy instinct caused Pete to veto that suggestion.

“It ain’t important,” he told Andover.  “I’ll jest mosey around about six, and step in for a minute.  Don’t you say I’m in town!”

Andover gazed curiously after Pete as the latter marched out.  The surgeon shook his head.  Mixed drinks were not new to Andover, but he could not for the life of him recognize what Pete had been drinking.

Doris, who had not been thinking of Pete at all,—­as she was not a spiritualist, and had always doubted that affinities were other than easy excuses for uneasy morals,—­came briskly down the hospital steps, gowned in a trim gray skirt and a jacket, and a jaunty turban that hid just enough of her brown hair to make that which was visible the more alluring.  She almost walked into Pete—­for, as it has been stated, she was not thinking of him at all, but of the cozy evening she would spend with her sister at the latter’s apartments on High Street.  Incidentally Doris was thinking, just a little, of how well her gown and turban became her, for she had determined never to let herself become frowsy and slipshod—­Well—­she had not to look far for her antithesis.

“Why, Mr. Annersley!”

Pete flushed, the victim of several emotions.  “Good-evenin’, Miss Gray.  I—­I thought I’d jest step in and say ‘Hello’ to that little kid.”

“Oh!  Ruth?” And Doris flushed just the least bit herself.  “Why, little Ruth is not here now.”

“Shucks!  Well, I’m right glad you are!  Was you goin’ somewhere?”

“Yes.  Out to my sister’s on High Street.”

“I only been in town two or three days, so I don’t know jest where High Street is, but I reckon I could find my way back all right.”  And Pete so far forgot the perfume as to smile in his old, boyish way.

Doris did some rapid mental calculation and concluded that her latest—­or rather her last—­letter had just about arrived in Tucson, and of course Pete had not read it.  That made matters a little difficult.  But there was no reason in the world why he should not walk with her to her sister’s.