off. She had not her brother's simplicity nor his optimism. Her
married years had taken her away from the environment which had
enabled him to live his busy, uncomplicated life; where, the only
medical man in a growing community, he had learned to form his own
sturdy decisions and then to abide by them.

Black and white, right and wrong, the proper course and the improper
course--he lived in a sort of two-dimensional ethical world. But
to Lucy Crosby, between black and white there was a gray no-man's
land of doubt and indecision; a half-way house of compromise, and
sometimes David frightened her. He was so sure.

She passed the open door into the waiting-room, where sat two or
three patient and silent figures, and went back to the kitchen.
Minnie, the elderly servant, sat by the table reading, amid the odor
of roasting chicken; outside the door on the kitchen porch was the
freezer containing the dinner ice-cream. An orderly Sunday peace
was in the air, a gesture of homely comfort, order and security.

Minnie got up.

"I'll unpin your veil for you," she offered, obligingly. "You've
got time to lie down about ten minutes. Mrs. Morgan said she's got
to have her ears treated."

"I hope she doesn't sit and talk for an hour."

"She'll talk, all right," Minnie observed, her mouth full of pins.
"She'd be talking to me yet if I'd stood there. She's got her nerve,
too, that woman."