his return home. The claims upon his time, however,
were so numerous that it was evening before he reached Brown's hotel.
The countess would not, even to herself have admitted that she could be
subject to such an unaristocratic sensation as impatience; but we are
unable to hit upon any other word to express the state of unquiet
anxiety with which she awaited his coming.

He was announced at last.

At that hour in the day, it was not unnatural for Dr. Bayard to be in a
great hurry to get home to his dinner; and consequently his manners were
even more blunt and informal than usual. Without losing a minute, he
took a seat in front of the lady whom he supposed to be his patient,
looked scrutinizingly into her face and said,--

"Well, and what's the matter? A touch of fever, I suspect. We shall soon
bring that under."

Without further ceremony he placed his fingers on her wrist.

The countess drew her hand away, as though something loathsome had dared
to pollute her; and the bright red fever spot on either cheek deepened
into the crimson of wrath.

"Sir, I am perfectly well. I did not send for you to ask your advice
concerning myself."

Dr. Bayard drew back his chair an inch or two, but made no apology.

"I am the mother of Count Tristan de Gramont whom you are attending."

Dr. Bayard bowed.

"I hear that he is much better."

"Much better," was the physician's laconic reply.

"It would no longer be dangerous for him to be removed from his present
most unfit abode," the countess asserted rather than interrogated.

Dr. Bayard, in answering the queries of patients, or those of their
families, did not follow the practice of physicians in general, but
adhered to the exact truth. He replied, "It would not be dangerous,
madame, but it would be unwise,--confounded folly, I might say. He is
very comfortable where he is, and he has capital care. I do not believe
there is such another nurse as Mademoiselle Melanie in Christendom."

If fiery arrows ever flash from human eyes, as some who have felt their
wound declare they do, such darts flew fast and thick from the eyes of
the countess as she regarded him.

"Sir, it is not a question of nurses. A mother is the fittest person to
watch beside her son."

Dr. Bayard differed with her, but did not give her the benefit of his
private opinion.

"As Count Tristan is in a state to be removed, I will give orders to
have him brought here to-morrow. I suppose it is too late to