Glenning had no words in which to answer this unusual discourse. He remained silent, and presently the doctor stepped aside.
"I swear you seem fit as a fiddle!" he avowed, in his old peremptory tones. "You must be a tough nut. How do you feel? Any internal pains?"
His patient drew a long breath, and a grimace which he could not check in time shot over his face.
"Don't lie to me, you young rascal! Where does it hurt?"
The speaker placed his hand on his right lung.
"It ought to hurt there, for you've a bruise as big as a soup plate. Nothing dangerous, but you must be careful. Stay in this room for two days, anyway, and lie down most of the time. Do you promise?"
"I suppose I'll have to," replied Glenning, somewhat ruefully.
Doctor Kale thumped over to his hat and medicine case. Jamming the hat on his head till it almost rested on his ears, he grabbed his case, then swung around and gazed keenly at the new doctor.
"Are you married?" he demanded, abruptly, and in a manner which in anyone else would have been highly impertinent.
"No," was the answer, given quite gravely.
A meaningless snort greeted this inoffensive monosyllable. Then Doctor Kale began to parade the room, thumping and storming.
"Why in hell ain't you? A doctor ought to be married--adds to his respectability. And here you come sneakin' into Macon not married!"
He stopped about three feet in front of the figure in the chair.
"I may be a rascal, as some people say, but I'm no fool. You're not married, and you went into a fiery furnace to save Julia Dudley's horse. Now I've got this to say. The man who gets her has me to reckon with as well as the old Major. Damned if he don't have to _prove_ himself, and be as clean as a white-washed wall! Good morning, sir!"
He stamped to the door, went out, slammed it furiously behind him, and was gone.
The predominant feeling in Glenning's breast when Doctor Kale left him was one of resentment. The old fellow had presumed far beyond his rights, had gone into the future in an entirely unwarrantable way, and had given advice for which there was no thanks in the young man's heart. His resentment was heightened by the fact that Julia Dudley's face had been haunting him all morning. Certainly he did not love her. He had never exchanged a word with her; he had only seen her once, a vision of white beauty with brown, braided hair, standing like a Niobe in that night of stress and peril. He had never been of a susceptible temperament. He had work to do in the world, and love must wait. That had been his motto of renunciation, for he had a deep, strong, tender heart, charged with that priceless heritage God gives to each of his children. But when the girl with the braided hair had stepped forward in the presence of half the town and had singled him out for her cavalier in the adventure of that hour, he had felt a strange and unaccountable thrill pass through him. Her presence had been with him in the burning, blinding heat of his subsequent struggle, and the knowledge that she was waiting without for him to appear again a victor had nerved his arm and his smoke-numbed brain to success. He did not try to hide these facts from himself, but it was galling to think that a meddlesome old busy-body had also found them out, and had flung them in his face, coupled with a warning.