This was the thought with which he sank into the first natural sleep of convalescence. But during the days which followed, Margery was able to modify it without dulling the keen edge of his obligation. What perfect hospitality could do was done, without ostentation, with the exact degree of spontaneity which made it appear as a service rendered to a kinsman. It was one of the gifts of the daughter of men to be able to ignore all the middle distances between an introduction and a friendship; and by the time Griswold was strong enough to let the big, gentle Swede plant him in a Morris chair in the sun-warmed bay-window, the friendship was a fact accomplished. "Do you know, you're the most wonderful person I have ever known?" he said to Margery, on the first of the sunning days when she had come to perch in the window-seat opposite his chair. "It's propinquity," she laughed. "You haven't seen any other woman for days and weeks. Wait until you are strong enough to come down to one of my 'evenings.'" "No, it isn't propinquity," he denied. "Then it's the unaccustomed. You are from the well-behaved East. There are some people even here in Wahaska who will tell you that I have never properly learned how to behave." "Your looking-glass will tell you why they say that," he said gravely. Her smile showed the perfect rows of white teeth. "You are recovering rapidly, Mr. Kenneth; don't you think so? Or was that only a little return of the fever?" He brushed the bit of mockery aside. "I want to be serious to-day--if you'll let me. There are a lot of things I'd like to know." "About Wahaska?" "About you, first. Where did we meet?--before I came out of the fever woods and saw you standing by the bed?" "We didn't 'meet,' in the accepted meaning of the word. My father and I happened to sit at your table one evening in the Hotel Chouteau, in St. Louis." "Ah; I knew there was a day back of the other days. Do you believe in destiny?" She nodded brightly. "Sometimes I do; when it brings things out the way I want them to come out." "I've often wondered," he went on musingly. "Think of it: somewhere back in the past you took the first step in a path which was to lead you to that late supper in the Chouteau. Somewhere in my past I took the first step in the crooked trail that was to lead me there." "Well?" she encouraged. "The paths crossed--and I am your poor debtor," he finished. "I can never hope to repay you and your father for what you have done." "Oh, yes you can," she asserted lightly. "You can pass it along to the man farther down. Forget it, and tell me what you want to know about Wahaska." "First, I'd like to know my doctor's name." "The idea!" she exclaimed. "Hasn't there been anybody to introduce you? He is Wahaska's best-beloved 'Doctor Bertie'; otherwise Doctor Herbert C. Farnham." "_Doctor Farnham?_--not Miss Char----" He bit the name in two in the middle, but the mischief was done.