"I knew you’d say that. You’ve been very nice to me. Ask me again as a guest. I’ll be glad to come as a friend if you care for me that way." Mr. Rivett’s unchanging eyes watched him. "We’ll ask you. My wife likes you. So do I.... I don’t want to interfere with a man who knows his own mind.... But do you think you can stand the journey?" Edgerton’s white lips were compressed. "Yes," he said. "Very well; we’ll stop at Fern Center. Billings can reduce the fracture." "Are you going with me?" "I certainly am," said the elder man. With a valet’s aid he got into his clothes. His swollen wrist lay in a sling. "I won’t bother the others now," he said to Mrs. Rivett who was on the edge of tears because he would not remain and let her take care of him. "Please say good-by for me when they come in, and say that I’m all right and hope to see them all again.... Good-by! ... It’s been a real happiness to know you—and yours. Will you let me continue the friendship?" "Please do," she said tremulously. "Jacob, you will tell Holmes to drive carefully, won’t you?" "Yes, mother. Billings is going to put him in good shape." So they drove away in a big red touring car, Edgerton sick with pain, but perfectly cheerful; Rivett taciturn, twirling his gloved thumbs, seeming to muse gloomily in his walrus mustache. Dr. Billings reduced the fracture—a simple one—Edgerton refusing anæsthetics. He fainted during the short operation, and came to with his head on Rivett’s shoulder. Half an hour later he was on his way to New York, lying back in a chair in the drawing-room car, feverish lids closed. Rivett sat in the chair opposite. "I was going, anyway," he said briefly in reply to the young fellow’s protest. And together they made the journey, not only to the city, but to Edgerton’s apartment, where Rivett quietly turned himself into a valet, helped the young man to bed, called up his physician, Dr. Ellis, lingered to learn what condition the patient was in, and silently vanished. And for two or three days Edgerton forgot about him, for Ellis kept him pretty quiet, and the nurse who had been summoned knew her business. He managed, however, to write his bread-and-jam letter to Mrs. Rivett, and another to Diana: "MY DEAR COUSIN: "They’ve probably told you that I’ve been ass enough to snap a bone in my left arm. It’s nothing, as you hunting people understand. I was a bit stupid with it, so I ran down to town to have it fixed up—and, incidentally, hunt up a job; and I wasn’t up to explaining and saying by-by to everybody, so I just slunk off—ill mannered pup that I am; but people are indulgent to dogs. "This is just a line to take leave of you and Silvette, and to ask you to remember that, in any and all interims, this apartment is a family joint, so don’t go elsewhere and pay perfectly good rent. Your room and Silvette’s is always ready for you—useless unless you use it.