The disgust was still in his walk as he left the house an hour later. Watching his exit down the long gravel path, the Little Crippled Girl commented audibly on the matter. “Peach! Peach!” she called, “what makes Fat Father walk so--surprised?” People at the hospital also commented upon him. “Gee!” giggled the new nurses, “we bet he’s a Tartar! But isn’t his hair cute? And, say, is it really true that that Malgregor girl was pinned down perfectly helpless under the car and he wouldn’t let her out till she’d promised to marry him? Isn’t it awful? Isn’t it romantic?” “Why, Dr. Faber’s back!” fluttered the old nurses. “Isn’t he wonderful? Isn’t he beautiful? But, oh, say,” they worried, “what do you suppose Rae ever finds to talk with him about? Would she ever dare talk _things_ to him,--just plain every-day things,--hats, and going to the theater, and what to have for breakfast?” They gasped. “Why, yes, of course,” they reasoned more sanely. “Steak? Eggs? Even oatmeal? Why, people had to eat, no matter how wonderful they were. But evenings?” they speculated more darkly. “But evenings?” In the whole range of human experience was it even so much as remotely imaginable that, evenings, the Senior Surgeon and Rae Malgregor sat in the hammock and held hands? “Oh, gee!” blanched the old nurses. “Good morning, Dr. Faber,” greeted the Superintendent of Nurses from behind her austere office desk. “Good morning, Madam,” said the Senior Surgeon. “Have you had a pleasant trip?” quizzed the Superintendent of Nurses. “Exceptionally so, thank you,” said the Senior Surgeon. “And--Mrs. Faber, is she well?” persisted the Superintendent of Nurses, conscientiously. “_Mrs._ Faber?” gasped the Senior Surgeon. “_Mrs._ Faber? Oh, yes; why, of course. Yes, indeed, she’s extraordinarily well. I never saw her better.” “She must have been very lonely without you this past month,” rasped the Superintendent of Nurses, perfectly polite. “Yes, she was,” replied the flushed Senior Surgeon. “She--she suffered keenly.” “And you, too?” drawled the Superintendent of Nurses. “It must have been very hard for you.” “Yes, it was,” replied the Senior Surgeon. “I suffered keenly, too.” Distractedly he glanced back at the open door. An extraordinarily large number of nurses, internes, orderlies, seemed to be having errands up and down the corridor that allowed them a peculiarly generous length of neck to stretch into the Superintendent’s office. “Great Heavens!” snapped the Senior Surgeon, “what’s the matter with everybody this morning?” Tempestuously he started for the door. “Hurry up my cases, please, Miss Hartzen!” he ordered. “Send them to the operating-room, and let me get to work.”