Page:Herbert Jenkins - The Rain Girl.djvu/53

 nurse to allow imagination to modify her instructions.

When the doctor arrived an hour later, he found his patient restless and irritable. Seeing this at a glance, he sat down by the bedside, placed a cool, strong hand upon his head, and began to talk. The effect was instantaneous. Beresford lay quiet, and the drawn lines of irritation upon his face relaxed.

"Had rather a bad time. Pneumonia brought on, or hastened, by that wetting you got. Delirious when they found you the next morning. Then we had to fight for you, and here after seven days you've come around. That was what you wanted to know, eh?"

Beresford smiled his thanks.

"And the Rain-Girl?" he questioned, "the girl who was here and played the concertina. Has she gone?"

The doctor smiled.

"I know, I saw her. Grey eyes and a manner half-demure, half-impertinent, wholly maddening. Yes, I met her on the road."

Beresford smiled appreciatively at the doctor's description.

"You're the best man's doctor I ever met," he said. "Do women like you?"

The doctor threw back his head and laughed loudly, causing the nurse, who had just left the room, to wonder if he were mad.

"I'm supposed to be a woman's doctor," he replied.