“I am not a little boy. Observe the bald spot on my head.” “Any unmarried man is as a little boy concerning women, be he as old as you. Moral: Get married. And I wish you would hurry. I can’t employ you till you do. And until I employ you, you will have no patients.” Doctor Rem laughed good-naturedly. “Well, you know, I have such an awful reputation for being a brute—” “She has never heard of you. I have been too ashamed.” “But she will. There’s that horrible story of my having crippled Leggett. Some of the newspapers said I killed him, and that story still survives. She couldn’t miss that!” Rem sighed hopelessly. “She doesn’t read the newspaper—it isn’t permitted in Quaker families, you know, until it has been expurgated. Then it has lost all interest for her, and her mind _will_ fix itself only upon the holes where the awful things have been excised. Once or twice I have taken the precaution to let her see what they were in my copy. But not often—not before I myself have been over them. For, say what you please, her Quaker innocence is the loveliest attribute she will ever have—the worldliness I shall teach her is not a half compensation—and she shall not be spoiled—she shall always be a Quaker. Yes, sir—but I shall teach her just enough worldliness to make some one—not you—want her enough to—Oh, I haven’t mentioned you. I have been ashamed to do it. Therefore, she is assailable.” “Huh! She flew away the moment I came.” “Fear of your fascinations.” “Say,—Bell-Bell, _was_ it on my account?” “It was. But not because of your fascinations. You are a rather rude diamond. It was because we have a deep, dark, deadly secret from you.” She whispered it, in quite the conspirator fashion. “Oh!” said Rem, stiffly. “Then I was de trop?” “Decidedly.” “All right. When I hear both of you pounding the piano, I won’t come in. She is learning to play.” “I know perfectly well that the more you hear that piano in the future, the more you will come in.” “It _is_ dull practising medicine and trying to get a reputation for steadiness. No one thinks it possible for me,” sighed Rem. “Poor boy! Nothing is so dreadful as reformation. And I will continue to help you. So shall she!” Rem brightened at once. “Say, Bell-Bell, will she, though?” “Aha! Piquant, isn’t it?—an affair with a little dove of a Quaker! Remember that I can protect her. So you may come whenever you hear the piano—just to help you to reform, and we will stop and put on our other clothes and entertain you gravely. Then some day, when you have proved that you are quite respectable, and are received at the bedsides of elderly ladies, we will confess all—what sort of crime we are up to—what sort of clothes we wear at our rehearsals—where and when we met. No, all that must wait until I have her safely married and out of your reach. For, I tell you frankly, she says that she has one reason for liking you—you are tall.”