“Is it Dr. John Leaver of Baltimore you speak of?”

“It surely is.  Do you happen to know him?”

“Slightly, and by reputation—­a great reputation.”

“Great?  I should say so.  Jack’s been sawing wood without resting for ten years.  We were great chums in college, though he was two classes ahead of me.  I was with him again for a winter in Germany, when we were both studying there.  If I can get him over here for a day, I’ll have an opinion worth respecting, whether it happens to agree with mine or not.  And if it doesn’t, I’ll not call it prejudice.”

He left the table to put in a long-distance call.  Between the salad and the dessert he was summoned to talk with his friend.  Presently he returned, chuckling.

“It must be fully ten minutes since I thought of Leaver, and now I have him promised for to-morrow.  I’ll meet him in the city, give him the history of the case at luncheon at the Everett, take him to the hospital afterward, bring him out here to discuss things, and give him one of your dinners.  Then for a fine evening at our fireside.  He’s agreed to stay overnight.  I didn’t expect that.  He’s usually in too much of a hurry to linger long anywhere.”

“He has never seemed in a hurry, when I have seen him,” Ellen observed.  “He has such a quiet manner, and such a cool, calm way of looking at one, I always thought he must have a wonderful command of himself.”

“I always envied him that,” admitted Red Pepper, stirring his coffee with a thoughtful air.  “I used to wish it were contagious, that splendid calm.  He never loses his head, as I do.  Takes plenty of time to consider everything, and plenty to get ready in.  But when he does come to the point of operating,—­he’s a wonder.  Talk about rapidity and brilliancy!  And he never turns a hair.  I’ve often wanted to count his pulse at a crisis, when he’d found something unexpected—­one of those times that sends mine racing like a dynamo.  He’s as cool as a fish—­outwardly, at any rate.  Well, it will be jolly to see him.  I could hardly get his voice to sound natural, over the ’phone.  It seemed weak and thin.  Poor service, I suppose,—­though he had no difficulty in hearing me, apparently.”

“Shall I put him in the small guest-room or the large, comfortable one?  Which will appeal to him most, space or a reading-light over his bed?”

“Put him in the big room and give him all the comforts of home.  I doubt if he gets many of the really homelike sort, living alone with servants, in the old family mansion, since his mother died.  I’ve often wondered why he hasn’t married.”

“As you’ve only just married yourself I should think you would be quite able to supply a reason,” suggested Ellen, with a sparkle of her dark eyes under their heavy lashes.

“He’s had plenty of opportunities.  Many fair ladies have made it easy for him to propose to them.  But he’s not the sort that kindles into flame at the sight of a match in the distance.  Yet he’s by no means a cold-blooded proposition.  His heart is as warm as anybody’s, under that reserve of his.  That’s why I know he’ll see my patient for the love of science and humanity, and charge him nothing.”