"It is--in fact--it is Claude," he replied, blushing; but there
was not enough light to see his blushes.
"Dear me!" said the colonel's wife.
A few days later the patient, able to sit for a while in the shade
of the veranda, was lying in a long cane chair. Beside her sat
the colonel's wife who had nursed her through the attack. She was
reading aloud to her. Suddenly she stopped. "Here comes the doctor,"
she said; "and, Florence, my dear, his name, you know, is Claude.
I think you have got something to talk about with Claude besides
the symptoms." With these words she laughed, nodded her head, and
ran into the salon.
The veranda, with its green blinds of cane hanging down, and its
matting on the floor, and its easy-chairs and tables, made a pretty
room to look at. In the twilight, the fragile figure, pale, thin,
dressed in white, would have lent interest even to a stranger. To
the doctor, I suppose, it was only a "case." He pushed the blinds
aside and stepped in, strong, big, masterful. "You are much better,"
he said; "you will very soon be able to walk about. Only be careful
for a few days. It was lucky that the attack came when it did,
and not a little earlier when we were in the thick of the trouble.
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