"Isn't there anything I can do for him yet?" Kathryn inquired, with an abrupt letting down of her terse dignity. "It does seem a shame I can't do something to help the poor fellow along, especially when it is so many years that I have known him. It's not as if he were a mere acquaintance, of course, and I want him to feel quite at liberty to send for me, whenever he wants me." "I am sure he does, Mrs. Brenton," Olive assured her, with gentle malice, for not in vain was "the poor fellow" phrase rankling in her mind. "Then why in the world doesn't he send?" Kathryn asked rather injudiciously. Olive dodged the only direct answer she could have made. "Perhaps he shrinks a little--" she was starting. Kathryn, still regardless of the waggling little tail, shook her head in vehement negation. "Oh, he wouldn't be shy with me, Miss Keltridge. Remember, I'm quite an old married woman now; there's no reason he should feel at all--Besides, he sees you," she added, her voice sharpening with the sudden recollection. Olive laughed. "Me? Oh, I'm totally amorphous, Mrs. Brenton, a mere lump of old associations. It's good for Mr. Opdyke to have somebody to giggle with occasionally." Kathryn's voice betrayed her dislike of the flippant answer. "Poor dear man! I guess he doesn't giggle very often. Really, Miss Keltridge, I sometimes wonder if you realize how very sad it is." "Very likely not," Olive said dryly. "No; that's what I say. You see him so often that you get used to it. It is so easy to take such things as a matter of course." "You think so?" The dryness was increasing. "It never had occurred to me to feel like that." "No?" Then all at once Kathryn dropped her antagonisms and smiled across at Olive. "Dear Miss Keltridge, I don't want to gossip; but, between old friends like ourselves, one can speak out. Has it ever seemed strange to you that we none of us know just what is wrong with Reed Opdyke? Or do you know?" "I have no idea at all." "But don't you ever wonder?" "No; it's not my business," Olive said curtly. Then her sense of downright honour undermined her curtness. "Yes; after all, I suppose that, being human, I do wonder now and then." "Then you don't know, either?" "How should I?" "You see him so very often." Olive stiffened. "Really, Mrs. Brenton, it's not a thing one talks about." "Oh?" Kathryn's accent was indescribable. "I supposed he'd talk to you. Or haven't you ever asked him?" "I have not." Kathryn leaned a little nearer. "After all, Miss Keltridge, doesn't that seem a little bit--" Olive waited. "Self--er--centred?" "I don't see how. Mr. Opdyke would tell me, if he cared to have me know." "Unless he thought you would find it out by intuition," Kathryn suggested balmily, as she leaned back in her chair and smoothed her dressing gown. It was with difficulty that Olive downed her amusement. "Intuition, as a rule, doesn't count for much with spines and internal injuries," she said.