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A few days after this, Miss Trotter was summoned in some haste to the office. Chris Calton, a young man of twenty-six, partner in the Roanoke Ledge, had fractured his arm and collar-bone by a fall, and had been brought to the hotel for that rest and attention, under medical advice, which he could not procure in the Roanoke company’s cabin. She had a retired, quiet room made ready. When he was installed there by the doctor she went to see him, and found a good-looking, curly headed young fellow, even boyish in appearance and manner, who received her with that air of deference and timidity which she was accustomed to excite in the masculine breast–when it was not accompanied with distrust. It struck her that he was somewhat emotional, and had the expression of one who had been spoiled and petted by women, a rather unusual circumstance among the men of the locality. Perhaps it would be unfair to her to say that a disposition to show him that he could expect no such “nonsense” THERE sprang up in her heart at that moment, for she never had understood any tolerance of such weakness, but a certain precision and dryness of manner was the only result of her observation. She adjusted his pillow, asked him if there was anything that he wanted, but took her directions from the doctor, rather than from himself, with a practical insight and minuteness that was as appalling to the patient as it was an unexpected delight to Dr. Duchesne. “I see you quite understand me, Miss Trotter,” he said, with great relief.

“I ought to,” responded the lady dryly. “I had a dozen such cases, some of them with complications, while I was assistant at the Sacramento Hospital.”

“Ah, then!” returned the doctor, dropping gladly into purely professional detail, “you’ll see this is very simple, not a comminuted fracture; constitution and blood healthy; all you’ve to do is to see that he eats properly, keeps free from excitement and worry, but does not get despondent; a little company; his partners and some of the boys from the Ledge will drop in occasionally; not too much of THEM, you know; and of course, absolute immobility of the injured parts.” The lady nodded; the patient lifted his blue eyes for an instant to hers with a look of tentative appeal, but it slipped off Miss Trotter’s dark pupils–which were as abstractedly critical as the doctor’s–without being absorbed by them. When the door closed behind her, the doctor exclaimed: “By Jove! you’re in luck, Chris! That’s a splendid woman! Just the one to look after you!” The patient groaned slightly. “Do what she says, and we’ll pull you through in no time. Why! she’s able to adjust those bandages herself!”

This, indeed, she did a week later, when the surgeon had failed to call, unveiling his neck and arm with professional coolness, and supporting him in her slim arms against her stiff, erect buckramed breast, while she replaced the splints with masculine firmness of touch and serene and sexless indifference. His stammered embarrassed thanks at the relief–for he had been in considerable pain–she accepted with a certain pride as a tribute to her skill, a tribute which Dr. Duchesne himself afterward fully indorsed.

On re-entering his room the third or fourth morning after his advent at the Summit House, she noticed with some concern that there was a slight flush on his cheek and a certain exaltation which she at first thought presaged fever. But an examination of his pulse and temperature dispelled that fear, and his talkativeness and good spirits convinced her that it was only his youthful vigor at last overcoming his despondency. A few days later, this cheerfulness not being continued, Dr. Duchesne followed Miss Trotter into the hall. “We must try to keep our patient from moping in his confinement, you know,” he began, with a slight smile, “and he seems to be somewhat of an emotional nature, accustomed to be amused and–er–er–petted.”