"Well--I hope _so_. Me, I wou'n' take ten thousand dollahs faw thad feveh
myself--to see that devotion of my wife. You muz 'ave observe', eh?"

"Yes, indeed, old man; nobody could help observing. I wouldn't talk any
more just now."

"No," he insisted, "nobody could eveh doubt. 'Action speak loudeh than
word,' eh?"

"Yes, but we don't want either from you just now." I put his restless arms
back under the cover; not to keep the outer temperature absolutely even
was counted a deadly risk. "Besides," I said, "you're talking out of
character, old boy."

He looked at me mildly, steadily, for several moments, as if something
about me gave him infinite comfort. It was a man's declaration of love to
a man, and as he read the same in my eyes, he closed his own and drowsed.

Though he dozed only at wide intervals and briefly, he asked no more
questions until night; then--"Who's with my wife?"

"Mine."

He closed his eyes again, peacefully. It was in keeping with his perfect
courtesy not to ask how the new patient was. If she was doing well,--well;
and if not, he would spare us the pain of informing or deceiving him.

Senda became a kind of chief-of-staff for both sides of the street. She
would have begged to be Mrs. Fontenette's nurse, but for one other