you are! If you must go on talking,
talk seriously."

"But why am I absurd?"

"Because, if I were a marrying woman, which I'm not, I shouldn't hesitate
between you and Captain Naylor, not for a minute."

"You'd jump at me?"

Laughing again, his eyes had now a schoolboy merriment in them, Mary rose
from the big chair. "At him, if I'm not being impolite, Mr. Beaumaroy."

They stood face to face. For the first time for several years--Mary's
girlhood had not been altogether empty of sentimental episodes--she
blushed under a man's glance, because it was a man's. At this event, of
which she was acutely conscious and at which she was intensely irritated,
she drew herself up, with an attempt to return to her strictly
professional manner.

"I don't find you the least impolite, Dr. Arkroyd," said Beaumaroy.

It was impudent, yet gay, dexterous, and elusive enough to avoid reproof.
With no more than a little shake of her head and a light yet embarrassed
laugh, Mary moved toward the door, her way lying between the table and an
old oak sideboard, which stood against the wall. Some plates, knives, and
other articles of the table lay strewn, none too tidily, about it.
Beaumaroy followed her, smiling complacently, his hands in his pockets.

Suddenly Mary came to a stop and pointed with her finger at the
sideboard, turning her face towards her companion. At the same instant
Beaumaroy's right hand shot out from his pocket towards the sideboard, as
though to snatch up something from it. Then he drew the hand as swiftly
back again; but his eyes watched Mary's with an alert and suspicious
gaze. That was for a second only; then his face resumed its amused and
nonchalant expression. But the movement of the hand and the look of the
eyes had not escaped Mary's attention; her voice betrayed some surprise
as she said:

"It's only that I just happened to notice that combination knife-and-fork
lying there, and I wondered who--"

The article in question lay among some half-dozen ordinary knives and
forks. It was of a kind quite familiar to Doctor Mary from her hospital
experience, a fork on one side, a knife-blade on the other; an implement
made for people who could command the use of only one hand.

"Surely you've noticed my hand?" He drew his right hand again from the
pocket to which he had so quickly returned it. "I used to use that in
hospital, when I was bandaged up. But that's a long while ago now, and I
can't think why Hooper's