"I thought you might be going down to Honedale, as I knew you returned
last night, so I brought these flowers for your patient with my
compliments, or if you prefer I give them to you, and you can thus
present them as if coming from yourself."
"As if I would do that," the doctor answered, taking the bouquet in
his hand the better to examine and admire it. "Did you arrange it, or
your gardener?" he asked, and when Guy replied that the merit of
arrangement, if merit there were, belonged to himself, he began to
deprecate his own awkwardness and want of tact. "Here I have been
cudgeling my head this half hour trying to think what I could take her
as a peace offering, and could think of nothing, while you--Well, you
and I are different entirely. You know just what is proper--just what
to say, and when to say it--while I am a perfect bore, and without
doubt shall make some ludicrous blunder in delivering the flowers.
To-day will be the first time really that we meet, as she was sleeping
when I was there last, while on all other occasions she has paid no
attention whatever to me."
For a moment Guy regarded his friend attentively, noticing now that
extra care had been bestowed upon his toilet, that the collar was
fresh from the laundry, and the new cravat tied in a most
unexceptionable manner, instead of being twisted into a hard knot,
with the ends looking as if they had been chewed.
"Doc," he said, when his survey was completed, "how old are you--
twenty-five or twenty-six?"
"Twenty-five--just your age--why?" and the doctor looked with an
expression so wholly innocent of Guy's real meaning that the latter,
instead of telling why, replied: "Oh! nothing; only I was wondering if you would do to be my father.
Agnes, I verily believe, is more than half in love with you; but, on
the whole, I would not like to be your son; so I guess you'd better
take some one younger--say Jessie. You are only eighteen years her
senior."
The doctor stared at him amazed, and when he had finished said with
the utmost candor: "What has that to do with Madeline? I thought we
were talking of her." "Innocent as the newly-born babe," was Guy's
mental comment, as he congratulated himself on his larger and more
varied experience.
And truly Dr, Holbrook was as simple-hearted as a child, never
dreaming of Guy's meaning, or that any emotion save a perfectly proper
one had a lodgment in his breast as he drove down to Honedale,
guarding carefully Guy's bouquet, and wishing he knew just what he
ought to say when he presented it.