Chapter 12

A TUBERCULAR KNEE AND A WORRIED SURGEON

Dr. Earl found his hands uncommonly full for the next few weeks. What with the endless detail attendant upon the arrangements for his new offices, and the perfection of his equipment, it seemed as if there were not enough hours in the day to meet all the calls upon him. Leonora looked aggrieved, and Hilda complained loudly that he had deserted them.

The spectacular manner in which the yellower part of the New York press had handled his first case after his return, brought him telephone calls and personal visits from many old patients, and a goodly number from new ones, not to mention freaky interviews with persons representing all sorts of cults. He was asked to address half a dozen different branches of the New Thought movement. The Society for the Propagation of Esoteric Buddhism asked him to tell them of his experiences in Hindoostan; "Purple Mother" and "Besant" Theosophists sent committees to wait on him, and various believers in Spiritist exploitations, astrologists, psychometrists and all sorts and conditions of dabblers in occultism pestered him with letters, circulars and requests of every conceivable nature.

It had been no part of his plan to return to his native land and set up a practice by which he should exploit to the world the results of his study. A real student, he knew very well that a lifetime would be all too short to devote to the as yet but little known field of mental therapeutics, and nothing could have been more foreign to his character, individually or professionally, than the fanfare of trumpets with which his return had been heralded. The principles which he wished to prove must be brought home to his profession if they were to be of great and lasting benefit, and the publicity and advertising which a man of a different calibre might have enjoyed, were annoying in the extreme to Earl. He was still a young man, and modest withal, and he felt that nothing could be more detrimental with the men whose regard he wished to secure and hold, so he declined all invitations to speak, all requests for articles or interviews, and gave himself up to getting back into the harness. His patients, both old and new, took up more time than he could have hoped for, and before the middle of summer he found himself not only well launched in his profession, but with all that he could possibly find time to do, and work piling up ahead of him, so that he could only promise indefinitely when the Ramseys urged him to come down to their Newport place, and Leonora had to put up with fractions of Sundays until she and her mother left for Bar Harbor.

There were times when that young lady was by no means certain that she wished to marry a successful physician. "You wouldn't like me any better if I were unsuccessful?" he asked teasingly, but she came back to her point, and he had to explain gravely that the theories of the laboratory must be worked out in actual practice before they can be transmuted into accepted facts.

"But you don't need the money," she argued, trying dimly to apply some of the principles which he was fond of expounding. It seemed rather hopeless, but with infinite patience he sought to make clear to her that any human being whose life is not to be useless and profitless must have some object to attain, some work to do which will develop his character. When she replied that he had character enough, and her only object in life was to be his wife, what more was there to say? Flattery at once so charming and so complete left him defenseless, and he kissed her and went away, trying not to ask himself whether a legal ceremony could ever make wedded souls of two mortals of such diverse views of life. And yet, she was so sweet, so sweet!

In spite of the many other demands upon his time, Dr. Earl saw his first patient very frequently. Mrs. Bell did not appear cramped for means, and provided everything that could add to her little daughter's comfort, including not a few luxuries, which Dr. Earl felt convinced were the gift of Miss Holland. If he had vaguely hoped that he might meet her at his patient's he was destined to disappointment. Once her car arrived just as he was leaving, and another time they passed on the stairs. He told himself that it was better so, and yet when he took her hand, and felt the firm, strong fingers, well-knit and efficient, for no soft, yielding little five-and-a-half glove-wearer ever compassed Beethoven, he knew that hers was a nature that could answer to his own, and his hand tightened involuntarily. There was something in his look as he met the blue eyes on the step above that brought the warm blood to her face, and she swayed toward him almost imperceptibly, and then with a word of courteous greeting went on her way, for she knew that according to common report he was to marry Miss Kimball that fall. Her lip curled a little, for she remembered Leonora of old; she knew her pink-and-white prettiness and the few and simple enfoldments of her elementary little brain, just large enough to hold a few attractive near-ideas, a thorough comprehension of all the social conventionalities, and a fixed and stubborn conviction as to what was or was not "smart." "If she has a soul," Silvia said to herself with rather unusual heat, "no one could tell whether it is in a condition of arrested development, hopeless atrophy or complete ossification. As well seek diamonds in a common sandbank as inspiration or aspiration in its sawdusty recesses." Then she laughed, and said, "Cat!" softly, which was really most irrelevant.

The day that the cast was to be removed, Silvia appeared laden with good things that they might celebrate the occasion with due ceremony.

With infinite care and gentleness, Dr. Earl cut down through the cast, and took it off. The fracture was perfectly knit, but there was a slight swelling about the knee, and as Earl examined it Silvia saw him compress his lips in a hard, straight line. Without looking up, or changing his tone, he asked the child if she had had a fall since the cast had been changed. She answered readily that about a week before her crutch had slipped as she was coming indoors, and she had fallen, striking the injured leg against the stone step, and she winced as he touched the thin knee.

"It's too bad," he said, "but there will have to be another cast about this knee, and you must be more careful, little girl."

The tears came to her eyes, and her mother turned to him with an expression of anxiety. His cheerful face reassured her. "We'll hope it won't be for long," he said, "but there's no use taking chances. Has her health generally been good?" he asked Mrs. Bell.

"The diseases common to childhood went rather hard with her and she had considerable trouble with her neck and throat a few years ago," Mrs. Bell replied.

He made an examination of the glands of her neck, but said no more.

In spite of many insistent calls elsewhere, Dr. Earl remained long enough to help lend an air of festivity to the small party, which Silvia presided over with infinite tact, and with a last admonition to Mrs. Bell to keep the little girl in bed until he came again, and as quiet as possible, he took his departure, and Silvia went with him.

"Tell me what is the matter?" she said, with her usual directness, when they were out on the street.

"What makes you think anything is?" he parried.

"I beg your pardon," she said, a trifle coldly. "I should not have asked."

He turned to her and stopped, mute reproach in his eyes. "There isn't a shadow of doubt that tuberculosis has developed in that knee, and while I hope to arrest it, and perfect a cure in time, I am very anxious, nevertheless."

"But the break has united?" she asked.

"Oh, yes, and that goes to show that this condition is very recent, and mild, but with her antecedent history no one can tell what may happen," he said.

"Antecedent history?" Silvia said, rather puzzled. "I thought you did not know the family?"

"I didn't," he answered, "but you may remember that I looked very carefully at the bruises about the knee when I set the leg, and I asked Mrs. Bell some general questions but received no very definite replies until to-day, and what you heard indicates that the child has already had a slight attack of tuberculosis. I had counted on my treatment to overcome the weakening influences of confinement to bed and crutch for so long a time."

Silvia was silent, as if thinking out some plan, and said suddenly, "Then it will all resolve itself into a contest between health and disease, with a considerable handicap against the patient?"

"Yes," he said. "With plenty of good food and good air and the right kind of care, there is no reason why she should not win. And I intend that she shall," he concluded energetically.