Madelene was in the doorway. "Father will be free--presently," said she. "He has another patient with him. If you don't care to wait, perhaps I can look after the cut. Father said it was a trifle." Arthur slipped his arm out of the sling. "In here," said Madelene, opening the door of a small room to the left of her father's consultation room. Arthur entered. "This is your office?" he asked, looking round curiously, admiringly. It certainly was an interesting room, as the habitat of an interesting personality is bound to be. "Yes," she replied. "Sit here, please." Arthur seated himself in the chair by the window and rested his arm on the table. He thought he had never seen fingers so long as hers, or so graceful. Evidently she had inherited from her father that sure, firm touch which is perhaps the highest talent of the surgeon. "It seems such an--an--such a _hard_ profession for a woman," said he, to induce those fascinating lips of hers to move. "It isn't soft," she replied. "But then father hasn't brought us up soft." This was discouraging, but Arthur tried again. "You like it?" "I love it," said she, and now her eyes were a delight. "It makes me hate to go to bed at night, and eager to get up in the morning. And that means really living, doesn't it?" "A man like me must seem to you a petty sort of creature." "Oh, I haven't any professional haughtiness," was her laughing reply. "One kind of work seems to me just as good as another. It's the spirit of the workman that makes the only differences." "That's it," said Arthur, with a humility which he thought genuine and which was perhaps not wholly false. "I don't seem to be able to give my heart to my work." "I fancy you'll give it _attention_ hereafter," suggested Madelene. She had dressed the almost healed finger and was dexterously rebandaging it. She was necessarily very near to him, and from her skin there seemed to issue a perfumed energy that stimulated his nerves. Their eyes met. Both smiled and flushed. "That wasn't very kind--that remark," said he. "What's all this?" broke in the sharp voice of the doctor. Arthur started guiltily, but Madelene, without lifting her eyes from her task, answered: "Mr. Ranger didn't want to be kept waiting." "She's trying to steal my practice away from me!" cried Schulze. He looked utterly unlike his daughter at first glance, but on closer inspection there was an intimate resemblance, like that between the nut and its rough, needle-armored shell. "Well, I guess she hasn't botched it." This in a pleased voice, after an admiring inspection of the workmanlike bandage. "Come again to-morrow, young man."