ps it was the singular clearness of her dead-white skin and
of the whites of her eyes; again it might have been the deep crimson of
her lips and of the inside of her mouth--a wide mouth with two perfect
rows of small, strong teeth of the kind that go with intense vitality.

"Just wait here," said she, in a businesslike tone, as she indicated the
reception room.

"You don't remember me?" said Arthur, to detain her.

"No, I don't _remember_ you," replied Madelene. "But I know who you are."

"Who I _was_," thought Arthur, his fall never far from the foreground of
his mind. "You used to be very serious, and always perfect in your
lessons," he continued aloud, "and--most superior."

Madelene laughed. "I was a silly little prig," said she. Then, not
without a subtle hint of sarcasm, "But I suppose we all go through that
period--some of us in childhood, others further along."

Arthur smiled, with embarrassment. So he had the reputation of
being a prig.

Madelene was in the doorway. "Father will be free--presently," said she.
"He has another patient with him. If you don't care to wait, perhaps I
can look after the cut. Father said it was a trifle."

Arthur slipped his arm out of the sling.

"In here," said Madelene, opening the door of a small room to the left of
her father's consultation room.

Arthur entered. "This is your office?" he asked, looking round curiously,
admiringly. It certainly was an interesting room, as the habitat of an
interesting personality is bound to be.

"Yes," she replied. "Sit here, please."

Arthur seated himself in the chair by the window and rested his arm on
the table. He thought he had never seen fingers so long as hers, or so
graceful. Evidently she had inherited from her father that sure, firm
touch which is perhaps the highest talent of the surgeon. "It seems such
an--an--such a _hard_ profession for a woman," said he, to induce those
fascinating lips of hers to move.

"It isn't soft," she replied. "But then father hasn't brought us up
soft."

This was discouraging, but Arthur tried again. "You like it?"

"I love it," said she, and now her eyes were a delight. "It makes me
hate to go to bed at night, and eager to get up in the morning. And that
means really living, doesn't it?"

"A man like me must seem to you a petty sort of creature."

"Oh, I haven't any professional haughtiness," was her laughing reply.
"One kind of work seems to me just as good as another. It's the spiri