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BY admonition and example Dr. Bruce Endicott—elsewhere genial and talkative—had discouraged all unnecessary conversation in his operating-theatres at Parkway Hospital. The sentiment he had built up against superfluous chatter on the part of his associates and assistants was not restricted to the period when surgery was actually in process. He did not like to be distracted even during the preparatory business of scrubbing-up. Nothing annoyed him more than some cold-bloodedly irrelevant remark, when an operation was impending, "as if one were making ready to bake a pie or patch a boot." Daily experience of working together in silence had so harmoniously integrated this particular group of five, that their respective rôles in the drama were adroitly enacted without need of prompting or conference.

On this eventful Wednesday the pantomime had been in progress for fifteen minutes, unattended by any noise but the padding of competent rubber-shod feet on the tiled floor, the muffled plunk of the sterilizing machines as they grudgingly disgorged their immaculate contents through belching billows of steam, the intermittent swirl and swish of water rushing into capacious porcelain basins, and the patter and rattle and clink and clank of variously sized, curiously shaped instruments, hot, clean, gleaming.

Gingerly and at arms' length Miss Ogilvie held up the surgical coat, and Dr. Paige stretched out his dripping arms toward it, instinctively aware that her eyes were inviting him as they always were in this thrice-a-day experience of a face-to-face contact which lacked only a little of an embrace. The Tweedy girl stood behind him, gowned and masked, waiting to tie the tapes down his back. Dr. Endicott was still vigorously polishing his nails. In a moment he, too, would be offering himself to Ogilvie for the same ministrations his associate had just received. By custom everybody was made ready before Endicott.

The anxious face of Lucy Reid, the chief's secretary, appeared in the crack of the corridor door. Miss Ogilvie glanced over her shoulder, visibly annoyed.

"Could Dr. Endicott answer the telephone?" inquired the girl nervously, aware that she was taking an unforgivable liberty.

"Certainly not!" snapped Miss Ogilvie, through her gauze. "You ought to know that much."

"I told them," explained Miss Reid defensively, "but they insisted it was very urgent, and said that Dr. Endicott would be at a serious disadvantage if the message was not delivered at once."

"Who was it?" boomed Endicott, without looking up.

"Riley, Brooks, and Bannister, Doctor. Shall I say you will call them up later?"

He released the faucet-pedal and stood for an instant, head tilted to one side, as if listening for a decision.

"They said it was of immediate importance?"

"Yes, sir."

"Very well, I'll go.... Sorry, Dr. Paige. I shall not be long."

Abstractedly stroking the fingers of his gloves, Paige walked through the alcove, passed the operating-table, and entered the adjacent chamber. Mrs. Dexter, with the customary modicum of morphine to reduce her active interest in the occasion, spread out her hand apathetically and signed that she was too drowsy to offer it, to which he wordlessly replied, by holding up his own, that he would be unable to touch her, anyway.

Grace Dexter, whom he had met briefly an hour earlier, stood in the doorway at a discreet distance, a bit pale, but entirely self-possessed. Her patrician face had the general contour of her mother's. Had the black hair been straight she could have done an acceptable madonna. Her figure was slight but shapely, as the severely tailored suit, unrelieved by any touch of colour, testified. The brooding grey eyes hinted at a well-developed talent for introspection, an effect augmented by the slightly drooping, sensitive lips. Slim, meditative fingers caressed a silver crucifix depending from a heavy chain about her white throat. Dr. Paige smiled, and she answered the recognition.

"Did your father come up?" he asked.

"Yes—and just now went down again. To the telephone, I think. He will be back in a moment. Mother seems quite fit, don't you think?"

"Never better!" said Paige confidently. Then, leaning over Mrs. Dexter, he whispered something in her ear which she approved with a contented sigh and several reassuring little nods. She closed her eyes, and the slightly smiling lips relaxed.

"Do I know what that was about?" queried Grace, in the tone of one asking for a password. Paige nodded and retraced his steps into the operating-room, and through the alcove where the white-swathed little company waited.

Presently the door opened and the chief appeared, quite plainly upset about something. Paige watched him anxiously as he resumed his washing with nervous haste. His face was flushed and the muscles of his cheeks twitched. The silence was taut. Endicott seemed to sense it with defenceless irritation. Everybody in the room knew that he had been engaged in an emergency conversation with his brokers, and he knew that they all knew. They knew that he knew they knew. He plunged his arms into the surgical coat with such force that he tore it out of Ogilvie's grip and it fell to the floor. Tweedy came promptly with another. His exasperation was all but out of control. At length, in spite of his haste, he was ready. They filed into the operating-room and gathered about the table.

Lane's thin fingers trembled a little as he readjusted the mask more effectively over Mrs. Dexter's face. Endicott noticed it and frowned. He stared glassily straight ahead through the high, bright windows while they waited for the increasingly laboured respiration to signal the moment for action. One more shuddering inhalation would do it. Lane slowly looked up, pursed his lips slightly, and nodded.

A hand-made Swiss watch could have had no better understanding of itself than this close-knit company of five. Endicott signed his commands to Paige and Ogilvie, Ogilvie signed to the Tweedy and Larimer girls—all the orders given with dexterous gestures. Endicott was working faster than usual.

The hands of the surgeons opened and whatever they required was instantly thrust into them; the others hovering close, alert, lynx-eyed.... A scalpel for Endicott, the swift use of a sponge thrust into Paige's fingers by Tweedy, a pair of forceps for Paige, the deft swipe of a sponge by Larimer, more forceps for Paige furnished by Ogilvie, fresh sponges for Tweedy furnished by Larimer, more forceps for Paige; clip, clip, clip, forceps, forceps, forceps for Paige, more gauze for Tweedy, a clamp for Paige, long-handled scissors for Endicott—a tense pause, quiet and stiff as a tableau. Larimer stood ready with the threaded ligator. Ogilvie offered the handles of a secondary clamp. Endicott shook his head. That meant he couldn't use it because there was no room to apply it. There was a quick, barely audible sucking intake of breath by Ogilvie. Endicott frowned.

"I'll hold your clamp, Dr. Paige," he muttered huskily. "You make the tie, please."

Paige realized that the pedicle had been cut too short for safe ligation. He adjusted the ligature with difficulty and drew it as tightly as possible. Endicott slowly and with apparent reluctance relaxed the clamp and withdrew it. They waited. The chief breathed as if he had recently been running uphill. He had made two grave mistakes. In his nervous excitement he had neglected to dissect the pedicle—sheath of the renal artery—with sufficient care, and had severed it too short for a secure tie.... The pedicle slowly rejected the ligature.

"My fault!" gasped Paige, as the flood broke. "I should have drawn it tighter. My God!"

The hæmorrhage was instantly out of control. Sponges would have been equally serviceable at a crumbled dam. The increasing tempo of the splash of big drops falling from the table to the floor quickened to a brisk patter and accelerated to a steady stream.

The chief seemed suddenly to go to pieces—a shocking sight to those who had never seen him panic-driven. He panted for breath and his hands shook. Ogilvie thrust a huge bunch of gauze into the pouring wound. He shouted to her to remove it, and frantically groped in the depths of the geyser with his clamp, hoping to recapture the spouting pedicle by mere blind chance.

"A donor—immediately!" he commanded hoarsely. "Here, Paige," handing him the clamp, "see what you can do." The frenzied grappling continued.

"How's she holding up, Lane?" mumbled Endicott, half incoherently.

Lane shook his head and closed the valves. Miss Tweedy collapsed on the slippery floor in a dead faint. Larimer dragged her out of the way. Ogilvie sponged the sweat from Paige's white face. The hæmorrhage was subsiding now. It had almost stopped. There was no further energy driving it.

Endicott and Paige washed at adjoining basins without the exchange of a word or a look. The chief was still breathing with an asthmatic wheeze. Paige was so shaken that his tears ran unrestrained.

Two orderlies were mopping the floor. The body had been wheeled into a room across the hall. Tweedy, quite nauseated, slumped over a basin in the corner, supported by Larimer, who was swallowing hard and apparently on the verge of crumpling.

Paige made a quick task of his ablutions, dashed to the dressing-room, and changed to his street clothes. Nothing seemed to matter now but a prompt escape from this place at top speed. His hands shook so violently that he could hardly manage his buttons.

Frances Ogilvie was waiting for him when he came out into the corridor. He pretended not to notice her, and moved quickly to the elevator. She followed, clutching at his sleeve. "Wait!" she cried. "I know exactly what happened and I'm going to tell everybody the truth."

"You're going to mind your own business," retorted Paige, measuring his words, sternly. "It was my fault and I've admitted it. And that settles it. You are to stay out of it, and keep your mouth shut."

The sluggish elevator was in use, its remote rumble threatening a long delay. Unable to bear any more of the tempest that had reduced the Ogilvie girl to a tear-smeared sputter of protestations, Paige suddenly pushed her out of his path and started for the stairway. She pursued him, sobbing aloud. He lost her somewhere between the third and second floors, and ran on. The last he heard of her was an hysterical scream, "You'll be sorry!"

In the main hall, the superintendent, Watts, called to him, but he did not stop. At the front door he ran into Ted Rayburn, the house physician. He had been closer to Rayburn, for a couple of years, than to any of the others, with the possible exception of Bennie Booth.

"Where are you bolting to?" demanded Rayburn, holding out both arms, semaphore fashion. "What's happened? You're white!"

"They'll tell you—in there," Paige replied, over his shoulder, hurrying on.

Walking swiftly to the gate, he hailed a cruising taxi and ordered the driver to take him home. He did not reply when the elevator boy at the Hermitage inquired why he was not using his own car.

The apartment was cool and quiet. Inagaki was out, probably attending to his marketing.

Paige flung his hat on to the table in the small vestibule and walked through the living-room into his library. Although temperate almost to the point of abstinence, he maintained a cabinet of choice liquors for the use of his guests. He went directly to it, poured himself a stiff drink of cognac, and gulped it raw. Unaccustomed to such heroic potations, and having had nothing to eat—it was now twelve-thirty—since his light breakfast at seven, he felt the fiery stuff make his head swim.

Telephoning the garage, he instructed Pete to go out to the hospital for his car.

"No—nothing the matter with it. Drive it back to the garage and bring Sylvia here."

For a long time he stood at one of the front windows of his quite luxurious living-room, beating a tattoo on the sash with restless fingers. The thick traffic on the street below was a confused blur of noisy futility. Everything was carrying on down there as if no sudden world-destroying catastrophe had occurred. These people apparently hadn't heard yet that there was no reason for any further effort.

The tragic affair of the forenoon clamoured for appraisal, but it was all too painfully recent for a sensible survey. On the trip home in the taxicab the one blistering fact that mattered most was the wanton destruction of his idol. As they had stood there, side by side, almost touching elbows, scrubbing off the blood that had been so needlessly shed, he had momentarily expected the big, dynamic, generous-hearted fellow to turn to him and say, courageously: "I was to blame, Newell. We both know that. I shall clear you of any responsibility, you may be sure." And he had already composed the quick reply, "Better let the matter rest the way it is." But Endicott—damn him!—had buried his hairy arms and pallid face in the square porcelain tub, splashing and spluttering, without a single glance, much less a friendly word. Endicott had crashed, completely cracked up. All that noble talk in his sumptuous library of an evening about professional ethics, good sportsmanship, the inviolability of the Hippocratic (or was it the hypocritic?) oath, the devotion to duty that demanded precedence over any and all personal ambitions—bah!—and to hell with it!

Mentally inspecting him now, toppled from his pedestal, Paige realized that Endicott's moral disaster had not been entirely unpredictable. He had seen the big man slipping, slipping, day after day. Too much concern about money. Too much fretting about investments. Too many business conferences downtown. Too much travelling all night and rushing into operations in the morning, for which he had not prepared.

There had been that Baldwin girl, for instance, only last Thursday. Simplest possible appendectomy. Could have done it with his eyes shut. No occasion at all for a fifty-minute exploratory. Hadn't studied the plate, that was the trouble. Was making a speech that night before the P.T.A. on (God help us!) "The Changing Thought of the Public in Respect to Surgery." Probably was thinking about that when they showed him the picture of the little stenographer's insides. Or wondering, perhaps, whether steel and rails would be stronger to-day. No matter if the twenty-dollar-a-week office clerk was kept in bed ten days longer than necessary. That wouldn't discommode the chief.

No—Endicott had not crashed from some dizzy height. He had been sliding for a long time. Paige admitted to himself now that he had been afraid to see the chief operate on Mrs. Dexter. Old Lane had been afraid of it too. As much as said so. He regretted that he had been so surly and highhanded with Lane. Lane was an honest fellow, for all his fanatical rot about the soul-destroying effect of easy money. Maybe frowsy old Lane was right. One thing was sure—money hadn't improved Endicott. It had made him puffy, arrogant, bumptious. And now, in an emergency, he had turned out to be a coward and a cad.

Newell's hard-driven pulse pounded in his ears. Unwilling to torture himself any further with thoughts of the execrable Endicott, he went into the library and wrote a brief letter of resignation to Watts, splutteringly addressed an envelope, and rose unsteadily to take another drink of cognac. Briefly cleared, he resumed his stand at the window, and thought of Mrs. Dexter.

Subconsciously he had been dreading the moment when his memory would compel a review of her case. To his amazement, the thought of Mrs. Dexter calmed him somewhat. He had anticipated that the recollection of her tragedy would haunt him for life. Strangely enough, the painful sight of her on the operating-table, rapidly melting away, was driven into complete eclipse by the enduring vision of her in her room. Incomparably steady, she now seemed to stand apart from all the blundering pomposities and blustering incompetence and whimpering anxiety of his madly careering world—an indestructible symbol of self-possession.

Sometimes, seated at ease in her tranquil presence, he had found himself smiling indulgently as she talked of "the things that make for personal adequacy." Under ordinary circumstances he would, he knew, have distrusted the phrase. People who chattered glibly of "the-things-that-make-for" this and that were tiresome, and more often than not turned out to be mentally untidy.

But Mrs. Dexter's confident talk about "personal adequacy" was refreshing. He had enjoyed hearing it because it was so evident that she believed it. He had gone back to her, day after day, just to hear her say it. The very enunciation of the phrase had put her singularly mobile lips through all their pretty paces. And it was a nice theory to toy with, academically; about as practical as a house made of tissue-paper; very bright and attractive, so long as it doesn't rain.

He had teasingly said this to her—just about this way—and she had replied, smilingly unruffled, "But doesn't it look a little like rain—over my house? You don't think I shall go to pieces, do you?"

"No," he had declared, with sincere conviction, "you'll not go to pieces, whatever the weather, but that will not be because of your curious philosophy. It's not the philosophy that insures Mrs. Dexter: it's Mrs. Dexter that insures the philosophy. What difference does it make, after all, what one believes? If your ductless glands are functioning properly, and you're biologically built to be optimistic, your creed will sound attractive. Your Father, Son, and Holy Ghost will allure them. Or your Transmigration of Souls. Or your Iza-Nagi's Magic Wand. Or your Mystic Shrine of the Blue Flame. People with an undeveloped anterior lobe of the pituitary or an enlarged spleen will come with flowers for your altar, thinking it is the thing you believe that has made you enviably competent to survive the shocks and storms and live beautifully.... You might as well expect to get results by screwing a Rolls-Royce name-plate onto a wheelbarrow, and command it to get about under its own power."

He distinctly remembered her drawling reply, "Pouf!—You and your glands! You'd better turn your old hospital into a nice new garage."

It had been very stimulating to talk with Mrs. Dexter. There was nothing wormlike about her serenity. Nothing annoyed her, but she was abundantly able to take care of herself in an argument.

The first time she had hinted at her curious theory, a bit shyly, he had suspected it of being some sort of esoteric religion, and inwardly sighed. Such a charming personality she was, and now she was going to be just another of those boresome, cult-harried women, preparing to unload an incomprehensible mess of sweet and sticky twitter relayed from some soul-surgeon. (Tuesdays at eleven in the Gold Room of the Ritz; a dollar-fifty, or the entire course of twelve for ten, the deep-breathing book gratis to subscribers.)

But it was soon observable that Mrs. Dexter, far from being just a gullible neurasthenic, was as remote as he himself from any interest in metaphysical cream-puffs. Indeed, she was his superior in respect to their attitudes toward such fatuities. He was acutely irritated by them; caustically satirical about them. Once he had said to her: "All religions are opiatic. The old ones stick to straight chloroform. The new ones like a little rose-verbena in their ether, just so it makes them too drowsy to think. One method is good as another." Mrs. Dexter did not deride any of them. She gracefully dismissed them with outspread passionless hands. Sometimes she had shocked him beyond belief with her bland insistence upon what seemed like an uncompromising fatalism.

"It's an odd thing," he had said, one day. "You seem the most gentle of spirits, but this belief you hold is hard as tool-steel. You have the temperament of a mystic, but your philosophy would bite a hole in a battleship!"

Well—she would be an everlasting inspiration. Tomorrow or next day they would carry her out to some shady spot and leave her there to become one with the soil. That grisly aspect of human mortality was made strangely unrepellent as he remembered her self-confessed integration with "a planned universe" which, in her opinion, was every way sound and worthy.

The door-bell rang. He answered it mechanically. Pete silently handed him the end of the leash and departed unthanked. Sylvia licked his hand as he unfastened the snap from her collar. She followed him closely into the library, and when he slumped into a chair she sniffed his fingers with quivering nostrils and whined.

"Go lie down!" growled Paige savagely. Then he went to the bathroom and washed his hands, thoroughly, this time. Having finished, he disrobed completely and spent a long time under the shower. Donning a dressing-gown, he sought the liquor cabinet again, telling himself he must not take any more cognac. It should be something light. He was barely able to move about. He poured a copious drink of rye whisky. The telephone was ringing, but he did not answer it. With a whirling head, he staggered into his living-room and sprawled at full length on the sofa, and slept.

Shortly after four he woke. Inagaki stood near, regarding him with concern.

"Dr. Rayburn is on the 'phone, sir," said the diminutive Nipponese.

"Tell him I'm out," muttered Paige thickly. "Tell everybody I'm out."

"Yes, sir—I told him you were in, sir."

"Well, you go back and tell him you're a little liar!"

Presently Inagaki was on hand again. He had a tall glass in which ice tinkled. It had a welcome sound. Paige reached for it.

"Did you tell Dr. Rayburn what I said, Inagaki?"

"Yes, sir. He also say I am the little liar. He will come."

"I might have known it.... What is this stuff, Inagaki?"

"Limeade, sir."

"It's pretty flat. Put some gin in it."

Inagaki found him sound asleep when he returned, and did not molest him. Paige slept fitfully. The room was darker each time he was roused by the telephone bell and the voice of Inagaki reassuringly replying to solicitous inquirers. Once he heard him say, "No, Miss, Dr. Paige is at the hospital.... He is not? Then I do not know."

At length he was aware of talk close beside him. A painfully pungent whiff of ammonia stung him wide awake.

"Hurry that coffee along, Inagaki," Rayburn was saying, "and make it strong."

Raising himself on one elbow, Paige ran his long fingers through his tousled hair and regarded his guests with a feeble grin. "It's love of humanity brought 'em here," he intoned, with deep solemnity. "Spirit of service. Man can't even get quietly inebri—ineber—can't even get quietly drunk in his own house without stirring up a lot of excitement. Did you fellows bring the ambulance?"

Bennie Booth chuckled a little, but Rayburn drew down the corners of his mouth and scowled.

"If you were in the habit of getting quietly drunk in your own house, there would be no occasion to call out the troops." He settled an ice-bag firmly about Paige's temples. "Here, drink this!"

"Better mix yourselves something," suggested their host, his thick head clearing slightly as he sat up and sipped the scalding coffee, "if you don't like to see me drunk by myself."

Booth thought it wasn't a bad idea. No use to humiliate Newell unnecessarily. He would feel better if they had something. Assisted by Inagaki, whose bewilderment over his master's plight amused them even in the face of their own anxiety, they returned with ample glasses of Scotch and soda.

"We've got to see this thing through, Bennie," Rayburn had said, under his breath. "Newell isn't fit to be left alone. He might do himself some damage. We've had enough of that for one day."

Seating himself on the couch beside his dishevelled friend, Rayburn studied his glass, and remarked casually, "Well—tell us all about it, Newell. What happened? Or don't you want to talk about it yet?"

"Not yet—or ever!" mumbled Paige bitterly. "Inagaki, make me one of those."

"Mostly soda, Inagaki," added Bennie, over his shoulder.

"But I would like to know one thing," said Paige, when the whisky had lifted his fog a little, "how did the girl—and her father—bear up? I didn't see them afterward. Wasn't quite man enough to face 'em."

Booth and Rayburn exchanged glances, each waiting for the other to invent an acceptable lie. Then Bennie shook his head; but Rayburn, noting that Newell had caught them in the act of conference, plunged into the truth.

"It has been a kind of complicated affair," he began ponderously. "Of course you've been laid up and haven't seen the evening papers. There was a terrific crash in the stock market to-day. The whole town is shocked. This man Dexter appears to have been cleaned out, along with a half-million other well-to-do's. Lost his shirt. That, on top of this accident at the hospital—or this on top of that—was a little too much for him. So he pushed off, this afternoon, about five. Not a very neat job. Didn't know his anatomy in the cardiac zone. Lived for a couple of hours."

"Ted looked after him," interjected Booth, "unconscious all the while."

"He means Dexter was," Rayburn explained, hopeful of lifting Newell's dejection.

"Damned silly remark," growled Paige sullenly. "And what became of the girl? Is she dead, too?"

"Oh, no; we put her to bed, over at Parkway, and sprinkled a little poppy-dust over her worries," replied Rayburn, pleased to be making an encouraging report. "But she had herself pretty well in hand, considering everything she'd been through: father and mother both dead and the family stony-broke—all in the course of about eight hours. Took it with her chin up. Maybe she was just stunned. Didn't want to go to bed. We thought she'd better. We sent some telegrams for her including a cable to her sister; addressed it to the young woman who is with her sister in London."

"Dr. Endicott about?" inquired Paige thickly.

"Huh!" snorted Bennie. "That bird!" Instantly aware of the injudicious slip, he added promptly: "I dare say he was busy. He had had a hard day. They say he took an awful beating in the market collapse."

Newell shut off this criticism with the surly comment that he didn't care to hear any criticism of Dr. Endicott, denouncing Bennie for a drunken fool who ought to have his envy under better control. To clear the air of this slight disharmony, they made another highball. Inagaki offered his employer some advice while this was in progress and was sent scurrying off to bed.

At two, the host having quite definitely passed out, Rayburn and Booth repaired to the kitchen, where they scrambled half a dozen eggs, grilled some bacon, and crowned Inagaki's statuette of Buddha with an inverted gin-jigger. Heartened by their success in giving a jaunty air to so profound a matter, it occurred to them that Newell, on waking in the morning, might appreciate some little memento of their playful mood at the time of taking their departure. Composing his arms and legs, they placed a bunch of celery across his breast, and drawing up two small tables at his head and feet put a pair of candelabra on guard. Bennie was for lighting the candles, but Rayburn, slightly less drunk, vetoed this mad suggestion.

At four-thirty Paige woke, bewilderedly took stock of his position which under any less tragic circumstances would have been ridiculous, dizzily struggled to his feet and muttered, "Dead, eh?... Why not?"

Reviving himself with another glass of cognac, he wrote a brief, business-like letter to his valued friend, Eugene Corley, junior member of the firm of attorneys who had long since handled his affairs and his father's before him, confident that his secret would be kept and his instructions meticulously obeyed. He rather wished he might have an intimate talk with his bachelor crony, who, although fully ten years his senior, had always been delightfully congenial. A postcript was added to this effect.

He left the letter, sealed and stamped, on the library table, and dressed quickly in a rough suit of tweeds and well-worn walking shoes, the dog following about closely from room to room, sitting on her haunches directly before him while he laced his shoes, studying his face with a somewhat annoying solicitude.

"No—you can't go, Sylvia," he said gruffly, patting her on the head. "Not where I'm going. You're still alive. Try to make the most of it."

She followed him to the door, and when he opened it squeezed past him and bounded out into the hall. He tried to coax her back, but Sylvia took advantage of his necessity to depart without raising the house. She made for the stairway, indifferent to her master's low-voiced cajolery and command.

It was still dark in the street and nobody in the vicinity was astir. There was a decided snap in the October breeze from the lake.

Paige turned south on Elm and walked briskly. Sylvia trotted at his heels.