-Louise wore an air of mystery, "and it may
not."

She stuck it later on Pan's head, but the effect did not please her. "You
are nothing but a grinning old marble doll," she told him, and Anne
laughed at her.

"I hoped some day you'd find that out."

Richard, arriving late that afternoon, found Mrs. Austin on the terrace.
"The young people are in the garden," she said; "will you hunt them up?"

"I want to talk to Dr. Austin, if I may."

"He's in the house. He was called to the telephone."

Austin, coming out, found his young assistant on the portico.

"Can you give me a second, sir? I've a letter from mother. There's a lot
of sickness at Crossroads. And I feel responsible."

"Why should you feel responsible?"

"It's the water supply. Typhoid. If I had been there I should have had it
looked into. I had started an investigation but there was no one to push
it. And now there are a dozen cases. Eric Brand's little wife, Beulah,
and old Peter Bower, and the mother of little Francois."

"And you are thinking that you ought to go down?"

"Yes."

"I don't see how I can let you go. It doesn't make much difference where
people are sick, Brooks, there's always so much for us doctors to do."

"But if I could be spared----"

"You can't, Brooks. I am sorry. But I've learned to depend on you."

The older man laid his hand affectionately on the shoulder of the
younger. If for the moment Richard felt beneath the softness of that
touch the iron glove of one who expected obedience from a subordinate, he
did not show it by word or glance.

They talked of other things after that, and presently Richard wandered
off to find Eve. He passed beyond the terraces to the garden. He felt
tired and depressed. The fragrance of the roses was heavy and almost
overpowering. There was a stone bench set in the midst of a tangle of
bloom. He sank down on it, asking nothing better than to sit there alone
and think it out.

He felt at this moment, strongly, what had come to him many times during
the winter--that he was not in any sense his own master. Austin directed,
controlled, commanded. For the opportunity which he had given young
Brooks he expected the return of acquiescence. Thus it happened that
Richard found less of big things and more of little ones in his life than
he had anticipated. There had been times when the moral side of a case
had appealed to him more than the medical, when he had been moved by
generosities such as had m