odor in the air from some freshly-opened phial; an almost feminine
neatness and luxury in an open morocco case like a jewel box on the
table, shining with spotless steel. At the head of the bed one of her
own servants, the powerful mill foreman, was assisting with the
mingled curiosity and blase experience of one accustomed to smashed and
lacerated digits. At first she did not look at the central unconscious
figure on the bed, whose sufferings seemed to her to have been
vicariously transferred to the concerned, eager, and drawn faces that
looked down upon its immunity. Then she femininely recoiled before the
bared white neck and shoulders displayed above the quilt, until, forcing
herself to look upon the face half-concealed by bandages and the head
from which the dark tangles of hair had been ruthlessly sheared, she
began to share the doctor's unconcern in his personality. What mattered
who or what HE was? It was--a case!

The operation began. With the same earnest intelligence that she had
previously shown, she quickly and noiselessly obeyed the doctor's
whispered orders, and even half anticipated them. She was conscious of a
singular curiosity that, far from being mean or ignoble, seemed to lift
her not only above the ordinary weaknesses of her own sex, but made her
superior to the men around her. Almost before she knew it, the operation
was over, and she regarded with equal curiosity the ostentatious
solicitude with which the doctor seemed to be wiping his fateful
instrument that bore an odd resemblance to a silver-handled centre-bit.
The stertorous breathing below the bandages had given way to a fainter
but more natural respiration. There was a moment of suspense. The
doctor's hand left the pulse and lifted the closed eyelid of the
sufferer. A slight movement passed over the figure. The sluggish face
had cleared; life seemed to struggle back into it before even the dull
eyes participated in the glow. Dr. Duchesne with a sudden gesture waved