So Sidney thought, in her ignorance!
"There's only one thing, Palmer," she said gravely. "Johnny Rosenfeld is
going to have his chance. If anybody in the world can save him, Max Wilson
can."
The light of that speech was in her eyes when she went out to the sleigh
again. K. followed her out and tucked the robes in carefully about her.
"Warm enough?"
"All right, thank you."
"Don't go too far. Is there any chance of having you home for supper?"
"I think not. I am to go on duty at six again."
If there was a shadow in K.'s eyes, she did not see it. He waved them off
smilingly from the pavement, and went rather heavily back into the house.
"Just how many men are in love with you, Sidney?" asked Max, as Peggy
started up the Street.
"No one that I know of, unless--"
"Exactly. Unless--"
"What I meant," she said with dignity, "is that unless one counts very
young men, and that isn't really love."
"We'll leave out Joe Drummond and myself--for, of course, I am very young.
Who is in love with you besides Le Moyne? Any of the internes at the
hospital?"
"Me! Le Moyne is not in love with me."
There was such sincerity in her voice that Wilson was relieved.
K., older than himself and more grave, had always had an odd attraction for
women. He had been frankly bored by them, but the fact had remained. And
Max more than suspected that now, at last, he had been caught.
"Don't you really mean that you are in love with Le Moyne?"
"Please don't be absurd. I am not in love with anybody; I haven't time to
be in love. I have my profession now."
"Bah! A woman's real profession is love."
Sidney differed from this hotly. So warm did the argument become that they
passed without seeing a middle-aged gentleman, short and rather heavy set,
struggling through a snowdrift on foot, and carrying in his hand a
dilapidated leather bag.
Dr. Ed hailed them. But the cutter slipped by and left him knee-deep,
looking ruefully after them.
"The young scamp!" he said. "So that's where Peggy is!"
Nevertheless, there was no anger in Dr. Ed's mind, only a vague and
inarticulate regret. These things that came so easily to Max, the
affection of women, gay little irresponsibilities like the stealing of
Peggy and the sleigh, had never been his. If there was any faint
resentment, it was at himself. He had raised the boy wrong--he had taught
him to be selfish. Holding the bag high out of the drifts, he made his
slow progress up the Street.