"Your friend has good nerve--brave and calm. Your sister? No? What's your name?"
Too kind to smile at this infantile assumption of importance, his eyes did laugh a little, but he said, "I meant your first name."
"Luke-- Well, Lita, I'm going to write to Effie about you. Wait! Where are you off to in such a hurry?"
She could not tell him that she was going to destroy the patient's compromising correspondence.
She said mysteriously, "I must go. You've been so kind. Good-by." For one tense moment she thought he was going to kiss her.
Evidently there is such a thing as thought transference, for as she drew back she heard him saying, "No, certainly not. I should not dream of kissing a lady of your mature years."
"You never kiss ladies of mature years?" murmured Lita in the manner of a six-year child.
"Well, I know how Effie feels on the subject. She boxed the ears of our local congressman for a salute which he offered merely as a vote getter. It was a terrible shock to him."
"You have a shock coming to _you_," she answered gently, and left the room.
She had a shock of her own on entering her bedroom, for Miss Jones, the house mistress, was already busy with Aurelia's bureau drawers. Had she or had she not lifted the top of the shoe box? It was necessary to act quickly; but fortunately Miss Jones was young and pleasant and easy to get round. If it had been Miss Barton-- The school often commented with a sort of wondering irritation on the fact that in dealing with girls Miss Barton was not absolutely an idiot.
"Halloo, Jonesy dear," said Lita with a soft friendliness which in pupils is somewhat like the bearing of gifts by Greeks. "She's all right. The operation's over, the doctor told me."
Miss Jones was winding pink ribbon on a card, and answered, "Oh, isn't he wonderful? Of all the great men I ever met Doctor Burroughs inspires--"
"It wasn't Doctor Burroughs. It was the other one, his assistant--what's his name? It begins with a D."
But Miss Jones didn't know anything about the assistant, and drew Lita's attention from a subject tolerably absorbing by asking if she knew where Aurelia kept her bedroom slippers.
"Look here, Jonesy," said Lita. "Who is that queer-looking man--like a tramp--on the piazza downstairs?"