you that
he is a man, a real man. There isn't one in a thousand who wouldn't be
begging, and whining, and even threatening the woman if he were in
George's position. That's why I'm so sure."

"What do you expect?"

"When his face grows a little thinner, and the Tresslyn in him is drowned,
I expect to ask him to come and see me," she said slowly.

"Good Lord!" muttered Simmy.

She sprang to her feet, her face glowing. "And I don't believe I can stand
seeing it grow much thinner," she cried. "He looks starved, Simmy. I can't
put it off much longer. Now I must go back. Thank you for the warning. You
don't understand him, but--thank you, just the same. I never miss seeing
him when he thinks he is perfectly invisible. You see, Simmy, I too have
eyes."

CHAPTER XIV

The next afternoon but one Templeton Thorpe was on the operating table. In
a private sitting-room on the third floor of the great hospital, three
people sat waiting for the result--two women and a man. They were the
Tresslyns, mother, son and daughter. There were unopened boxes of flowers
on the table in the middle of the room. The senders of these flowers were
men, and their cards were inside the covers, damp with the waters of
preservation. They were for Anne Thorpe, and they were from men who looked
ahead even as she had looked ahead. But the roses and orchids they sent
were never to be seen by Anne Thorpe. They were left in the boxes with
their little white envelopes attached, for Anne was not thinking of roses
as she sat there by the window, looking down into the street, waiting for
the word from upstairs,--the inevitable word. Later on the free wards would
be filled with the fragrance of American Beauties, and certain smug
gentlemen would never be thanked. No one had sent flowers to Templeton
Thorpe, the sick man.

There had been a brief conference on the day before between Anne and
Braden. The latter went to her with the word that he was to operate,
provided she offered no objection.

"You know what an operation will mean, Anne," he said steadily.

"The end to his agony," she remarked. Outwardly she was calm, inwardly she
shivered.

"It is absurd to say that he has one chance in a million to pull through.
He hasn't a single chance. I appreciate that fact and--so does he."

"You are willing to do this thing, Braden?"

"I am willing," he said. His face was like death.

"And if I should object, what then?" she asked, almost inaudibly.