Now that the cast was off, a few steps were attempted each night, during which painful operation Miss Enid fled to another room to shed tears of apprehension, while Miss Isobel hovered about the hall, ready to call the doctor if anything happened. "Is that better?" he asked now, as he got Madam to her feet and carefully adjusted the crutches. "If you say they are too short, I'll tell you what the little man said when he was teased about his legs. 'They reach the ground,' he said; 'what more can you ask?'" "Shut up your nonsense, and mind what you are doing!" cried Madam. "My leg is worse than it was yesterday. I can't put my foot to the ground." "Oh, yes, you can," Quin insisted, coaxing her from the bed-post to the dresser. "You are coming on fine. I never saw but one person do better. That was a guy I knew in France who never danced a step until he lost a leg, and then his cork leg taught his other leg to do the fox-trot." "Didn't I tell you to hush!" commanded Madam, laughing in spite of herself. "You will have me falling over here in a minute." When she was back in her chair and Quin was leaving, she beckoned to him. "What about Mr. Ranny?" she asked in an anxious whisper. "Was he at the office to-day?" Quin had been dreading the question, but when it came he did not evade it. Randolph Bartlett's lapses from grace were coming with such alarming frequency that the sisters' frantic efforts to keep the truth from their mother only resulted in arousing her suspicion and making her more unhappy. "No," said Quin; "he hasn't been there for a week. He's never going to be any better as long as he stays in the business. You don't know what he has to stand from Mr. Bangs." "I know what Mr. Bangs has had to stand from him." "Yes; but Mr. Ranny's never mean. He is one of the kindest, nicest gentlemen I ever met up with. But he can't stand being nagged at all the time, and he feels that he don't count for anything. He says Mr. Bangs considers him a figurehead, and that he'd rather be selling shoestrings for himself than be in partnership with him." "Yes, and if I let him go that's what he _would_ be doing," said Madam bitterly. "Mr. Chester don't think so," persisted Quin; "he says Mr. Ranny's got a lot of ability." "Don't quote that sissified Francis Chester to me. He may be a good man--I suppose he is; but I can't abide the sight of him. He goes around holding one hand in the other as if he were afraid he'd spill it! What did you say he said about Ranny?" "He said he had ability; that if he was on his own in the country some place----" "'On his own'!" Madam's contempt was great. "He hasn't _got_ any own. He's just like the girls--no force or decision about any of them. Their father wasn't like that; I am sure _I'm_ not. What's the matter with them, anyhow?" Quin looked her straight in the eyes. "Do you want to know, honest?"