Herman Medfield sat alone by his fire, with the memory of a white-capped face across the hearth and a little thought stirring in him of children playing in the great room, among his art treasures--with the light coming in softly, as it was coming now, across the little potted plants in the windows. XLII "Where have you been, all the afternoon!" Dr. Carmon was fuming in the office. He got up as Aunt Jane came in. "Where have you been?" he demanded. "I've needed you! They looked everywhere for you!" She came calmly in. "I went home with Mr. Medfield." She took up the little tablet slate on her desk and consulted it absently. "He needed me--he thought he needed me." "What for?" The tone was brusque. "He was well enough when _I_ saw him. Couldn't he go home without upsetting the whole hospital!" "He didn't like to go without me," said Aunt Jane. "In fact, he wouldn't go," she added. She put down the little tablet. "I'm sorry you needed me.... I don't very often go out." "Well"--his tone was mollified--"we managed to pull through without you. But I like to feel you're around--when I need you." "I generally mean to be," she said placidly. He glanced at her suspiciously. She was unusually meek. "What have you been doing all the afternoon? It didn't take four hours to go out to Medfield's place and back!" "We had tea--and we talked some." "Umph! Well, we've got _him_ off our hands!" "Yes--we've got him off our hands," assented Aunt Jane. "He's a good man," she added. "He's got money," said Dr. Carmon, without enthusiasm. "I never heard of his doing much good with it." She opened her little bag and took out the two blue slips and looked at them. Then she returned one of them to the bag and handed the other to him, without comment. He received it blankly and read it--and readjusted his glasses and read it again. He took off the glasses and held them in the tight clutch of one hand, resting on his knee, and surveyed her keenly. "I suppose you know what it is!" "Fifty thousand," she said meekly. "He's given you fifty thousand dollars!" He shook the little blue slip scornfully. "It isn't for me-- It's for us!" "What!" he said sharply. He put on his glasses again. "For the hospital, is it?" He took it up. She nodded. "For the new contagion wing." "We need it badly enough!" He fingered the check absently. "I didn't suppose we should ever have it, though!" "I told him we needed it," she said casually. "You begged it of him, I suppose!" A little trace of annoyance ran in the words. She received it equably. "I didn't do any begging, I guess. I just told him we wanted it." "So he handed it out!" "Well--not right then. He said he'd think it over-- He gave it to me this afternoon. Put it on my plate--for a kind of surprise." She was looking at something and smiling mistily at it. He watched her uneasily. "He's a nice man!" she said, meeting the glance he bent upon her. "You're tired," he responded abruptly.