Leaver, turning slowly toward the other man, "I agree to
stand beside you and direct the operation?"

It was Burns's turn to colour angrily, his quick temper leaping to fire
in an instant.

"Not _much_! Let every tub stand on its own bottom! Either I do the
job or I don't do it; but I don't take the part of an apprentice. I'll
agree to play second fiddle to you, with you playing first. But I'll
be--condemned--if I'll play first, with a coach at my elbow. Take that
and be hanged to you!"

He walked over to the open window, threw back the screen and put his
head out, as if he needed air to breathe. Leaver was at his side in an
instant.

"I beg your pardon, my dear fellow, I do sincerely. It was an unworthy
suggestion, and I don't blame you for resenting it. Nobody needs help
less than you. You could do the operation brilliantly. That's why there's
no need in the world to force me into the situation--no need--"

Burns wheeled. "There _is_ need! There's need for you--to save your soul
alive. You've been no coward so far--your overworked nerves played you a
trick and you've had to recover. But you have recovered, you are fit to
work again. _If you don't do this thing you'll be a coward forever!_"

It bit deep, as he had known it would. If he had struck a knife into his
friend's heart he could not have caused so sharp a hurt. Leaver turned
white under this surgery of speech, and for an instant he looked as if he
would have sprung at Burns's throat. There followed sixty silent seconds
while both men stood like statues. But the merciless judgment had turned
the scale. With a control of himself which struck Burns, as he recalled
it afterward, as marvellous, Leaver answered evenly: "You shall not have
the chance to say that again. I will operate when you think best."

"Thank God!" said Red Pepper Burns, under his breath.

The two walked out of the little white room, with its austere and
absolute cleanliness, without another word concerning that which was to
come. Burns took his friend over the house, and Leaver looked into room
after room, approving, commending, even suggesting, quite as if nothing
had happened. And yet, after all, not quite as if nothing had happened.
He was not the same man who had come out to Sunny Farm an hour before.
Burns knew, as well as if he could have seen into Leaver's mind, the
conflict that was going on there. The thing was settled, he would not
retreat, yet there was still a fight to be foug