im. It doesn't matter. There are heaps of pink and crimson
asters yet in the garden, and some fall anemones. We'll arrange them,
and then if his flowers do come we'll change. But they won't."

They didn't. But the pink and crimson asters furnished a centrepiece
decidedly more in keeping, somehow, with a men's dinner than roses
would have been, and the decorators were content with them. Dora, Mrs.
Macauley's own serving maid, who was to take the part of the waitress
Red Pepper had not thought necessary, said they looked "awful tasty
now."

"It's after seven and Red hasn't come yet." Winifred Chester rushed at
Arthur, dressing placidly. "Jim went in for the men with his car, and
said he'd surely have them here by seven-twenty. You'll have to go over
and do the honours for him till he comes. He'll have to dress after he
gets here."

"He won't stop to dress--not if he's late," predicted Chester,
obediently hastening. "He'll rush in at the last minute, smelling
horribly of antiseptics, and set everybody laughing with some story.
They won't care what he wears. It's always a case of 'where MacGregor
sits, there's the head of the table,' you know, with Red. I certainly
hope nothing will make him late. I'm not up to playing host to a lot of
physicians and surgeons. I should feel as if I were about to be operated
on."

"Nonsense, dear, there's no jollier company when they're off duty. But
Red isn't here yet, and I'm sure I hear Jim's Gabriel down the road. Do
hurry!"

Chester ran across the back lawn and in through Burns's kitchen,
startling Cynthia so that she nearly dropped the salt-box into a sauce
she was making for the beefsteak. He reached the little front porch just
in time to welcome the batch of professional gentlemen who came talking
and laughing up the path together.

"Doctor Burns has been detained, but I'm sure he'll be here soon,"
Chester explained, shaking hands, and discovering for himself which was
the famous Scottish surgeon by the "rugged commonsense" look of the man,
quite as R. P. Burns had characterized him.

Seven-thirty--no Red Pepper. Seven-forty-five--eight o'clock--still no
sign of him; harder to be explained, no sign from him. Why didn't he
telephone or send a telegram or a messenger? Waiting longer would not
do; Cynthia, in the kitchen, was becoming unnervingly agitated.

The dinner was served. Chester, at one end of the table, Macauley at the
other, both feeling a terrible responsibility up