heavy, "Oh, these Dutch farmers don't want
sympathy. All they need is a bath and a good dose of salts."

Carol must have flinched, for instantly he was urging, "What I mean
is--I don't want you to think I'm one of these old salts-and-quinine
peddlers, but I mean: so many of my patients are husky farmers that I
suppose I get kind of case-hardened."

"It seems to me that a doctor could transform a whole community, if he
wanted to--if he saw it. He's usually the only man in the neighborhood
who has any scientific training, isn't he?"

"Yes, that's so, but I guess most of us get rusty. We land in a rut of
obstetrics and typhoid and busted legs. What we need is women like you
to jump on us. It'd be you that would transform the town."

"No, I couldn't. Too flighty. I did used to think about doing just that,
curiously enough, but I seem to have drifted away from the idea. Oh, I'm
a fine one to be lecturing you!"

"No! You're just the one. You have ideas without having lost feminine
charm. Say! Don't you think there's a lot of these women that go out for
all these movements and so on that sacrifice----"

After his remarks upon suffrage he abruptly questioned her about
herself. His kindliness and the firmness of his personality enveloped
her and she accepted him as one who had a right to know what she
thought and wore and ate and read. He was positive. He had grown from a
sketched-in stranger to a friend, whose gossip was important news. She
noticed the healthy solidity of his chest. His nose, which had seemed
irregular and large, was suddenly virile.

She was jarred out of this serious sweetness when Marbury bounced over
to them and with horrible publicity yammered, "Say, what do you two
think you're doing? Telling fortunes or making love? Let me warn you
that the doc is a frisky bacheldore, Carol. Come on now, folks, shake a
leg. Let's have some stunts or a dance or something."

She did not have another word with Dr. Kennicott until their parting:

"Been a great pleasure to meet you, Miss Milford. May I see you some
time when I come down again? I'm here quite often--taking patients to
hospitals for majors, and so on."

"Why----"

"What's your address?"

"You can ask Mr. Marbury next time you come down--if you really want to
know!"

"Want to know? Say, you wait!"

II

Of the love-making of Carol and Will Kennicott there is nothing to be
told which may not be heard on every summer evening, on every shado