"Good Lord!" said Philip in deep disgust. "There's your pretty physician for you! 'Rest and quiet' for a knife scratch. Like as not he'll want me to take a year off to convalesce!"
"He left you another powder to take to-night," remarked Diane severely. "Moreover, he said you must be very quiet to-day and he'd be in, in the morning, to see you."
Something jubilant laughed and sang in Philip's veins. A day in Arcadia lay temptingly at his feet.
"Great Scott," he protested feebly. "I can't. I really can't, you know--"
"You'll have to," said Diane with unsmiling composure. "The doctor said so."
"After all," mused Philip approvingly, "it's the young medical fellows who have the finest perceptions. I do need rest."
Off in the checkered shadows of the forest a crow cawed derisively.
"Did you like your shirt?" asked Diane with a distracting hint of raillery under her long, black lashes.
"It's substantial," admitted Philip gratefully, "and democratic."
"You've still another," she said smiling. "Johnny bought them in the village."
"Johnny," said Philip gratefully, "is a trump."
Diane filled a kettle from a pail of water by the tree and smiled.
"There's a hammock over there by the tent," she said pleasantly. "Johnny strung it up this morning. The trees are drying nicely and presently I'm going to wander about the forest with a field glass and a notebook and you can take a nap."
Philip demurred. Finding his assistance inexorably refused, however, he repaired to the hammock and watched the camp of his lady grow neat and trim again.
On the bright embers of the camp fire, the kettle hummed.
"There now," said Philip suddenly, mindful of the hot, stinging wound-wash, "that is the noise I heard last night just after you stamped your foot and before the doctor came."
"Nonsense!" said Diane briskly. "Your head's full of fanciful notions. A bump like that on the back of your head is bound to tamper some with your common sense." And humming lightly she scalded the coffeepot and tin cups and set them in the sun to dry. Philip's glance followed her, a winsome gypsy, brown and happy, to the green and white van, whence she presently appeared with a field glass and a notebook.
"Of course," she began, halting suddenly with heightened color, "it doesn't matter in the least--but it does facilitate conversation at times to know the name of one's guest--no matter how accidental and mysterious he may be."
"Philip!" he responded gravely but with laughing eyes. "It's really very easy to remember." Diane stamped her foot.
"I do think," she flashed indignantly, "that you are the most trying young man I've ever met."