Under One Flag

The lady returned her thermometer to its case. She turned down her sleeves. She donned a sable jacket which Mr Palliser could not but feel was not unbecoming. With the curtest possible nod to the newcomer she quitted the room.

At his solitary meal that night, the more Bruce Palliser turned matters over in his mind the less he liked them.

"This is a nice kettle of fish! To think of her being Dr Constance Hughes! For all I know she may actually be of opinion that it was I who stole her purse-as that lying old scoundrel asserted-I should like to wring his neck! She wouldn't condescend to even give me a hearing; the vixen! She has a first-rate tale to tell against me, anyhow. Why, if she chooses to tell everyone that someone stole her purse, and that there was a man in the omnibus who declared he saw me take it, I sha'n't even be able to bring an action for slander; the thing is true enough. I ought to have dragged that old ruffian out by the hair of his head, and made him own then and there that he lied. I've half a mind to write to her and insist on her giving me an opportunity to explain. But she wouldn't do it; she's that kind of woman. I know it! I could see by the way she treated me this afternoon that she means to get her knife into me-and well in, too. A male rival is bad enough-I've had one or two passages-of-arms with old Harford-but a female-and such a female! I may as well announce my practice for sale while there's any of it left to sell. That woman won't leave a stone unturned to ruin me!"

During the next few days he was destined to hear more of Dr Constance Hughes than he cared for. She seemed to have impressed other people a good deal more favourably than she had him. Market Hinton is in the centre of a hunting country. The fact that she had quite a string of first-rate horses, and that she could handle the "ribbons" as well as any coachman, and had an excellent seat in a saddle, appealed to the local imagination in an especial degree. To be a "good sportsman" meant much at Market Hinton; of anyone who reached that high standard they could think no evil. Bruce Palliser found that, because Dr Constance Hughes had hunters who, with her on them, could hold their own in any country, and in any company, people were taking it for granted that her medical qualifications must necessarily be unimpeachable.

Old Rawlins, of "The King's Head," put the case in a nutshell.

"She drives a mare that would win a prize at any show in England; and it does you good to see the way she drives her. That mare wants some driving! I say that a woman who can handle a horse like she can handle that mare ought to be able to handle anything. She shall have the handling of Mrs Rawlins the next time she's ill; I'll have her sent for."

Bruce Palliser was to make the close acquaintance of the mare in question before very long, and in a fashion which did not tend to give him such a high opinion of the creature as Mr Rawlins possessed.

Just as he was preparing for dinner a call came to a patient who lived the other side of the town. His stable only contained one horse, and that had already done a good day's work. Taking out his bicycle he proceeded to the patient's house on that. He was not detained long. Glancing at his watch as he was about to return he perceived that if he made haste he would not be so very late for dinner after all, and would have a chance of getting something to eat before everything was spoiled. So he bowled along at a pace which was considerably above the legal limit. It was bright moonlight. Until he reached Woodcroft, the residence of Dr Constance Hughes, he had the road practically all to himself.

Woodcroft was a corner house. As he neared it he became suddenly conscience that a vehicle was coming along the road which bounded it on one side. As he came to the corner the vehicle swept round it. He had just time to see that it was a high dog-cart, and that Dr Constance Hughes was driving. For some reason the discovery caused him to lose his head. Forgetting that he was riding a free wheel, instead of jamming on the brakes he tried to back pedal. Before he had realised his mistake he was under the horse's hoofs, and the dog-cart had passed right over him.

Mr Palliser was conscious that the startled animal first reared, then bolted-or rather, tried to. Fortunately her master sat behind her in the shape of her mistress. Not only was she brought to a standstill, but, in less than half a minute, Dr Constance Hughes had descended from the dog-cart, and was kneeling at Mr Palliser's side.

Her first remark was scarcely sympathetic.

"You ought to have rung your bell," she said.

"I hadn't a bell to ring," he retorted.

"Then you never ought to come out without one, as you're very well aware. What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong."

He proved that there was nothing wrong by quietly fainting in the middle of the road.

"What's up?" was the first remark which he made when he returned to consciousness. "What's happened? Where am I? What on earth-"

He stopped, to groan with pain, and to recognise the futility of an attempt to sit upright. He lay still, looking about him with wide-open eyes. He was in bed-not his own, but someone else's. And in someone else's room; one, moreover, which was strange to him. On one side stood Dr Constance Hughes; behind her was that very general practitioner and ancient rival-Joseph Harford. It was the lady who replied.

"As to where you are, you're in my house. And you've come back to your senses just in time to let us know if you would like your leg cut off."

"My leg?"

"I said your leg. At present it's a question of that only. It may be necessary to proceed further later on."

"What do you mean?"

Bruce Palliser was conscious that his right leg was subjecting him to so much agony that beads of sweat stood on his brow.

"Compound fracture. Tibia and peroneal both broken. Mr Harford is of opinion that the only thing is to amputate at once."

"Is he? I'm much obliged."

"I say no."

"Do you?"

"I do. I say they can be set, being of opinion that it's worth while risking something on the off chance of being able to save your leg, since it's better to go about with two than one."

Mr Harford shook his head.

"I've had my say; having done so I wash my hands of all responsibility. If we amputate at once your life will not be endangered. If there is any postponement we may not be able to operate at all; you may lose your life and your leg."

"That is your opinion?"

"It is-emphatically."

"Then I'll keep my leg. Set it." He closed his eyes, he had to, the pain just then was so exquisite. Presently he opened them again to address the lady pointedly. "You set it."

"I intend to. Would you like an anæsthetic? It won't be pleasant."

"No."

"Then grit your teeth. I'll be as quick as I can; but I'm afraid you'll have a pretty bad time."

He gritted his teeth, and he had a pretty bad time. But through it all he recognised that the work was being done by a workman, with skill and judgment, with as much delicacy also as the thing permitted. He had not thought that such a slip of a girl could have had such strength or courage. When the task was over she gave what sounded like a gratified sigh.

"That's done. You've behaved like a man."

"And you're a surgeon born."

That was all he could mutter. Then he swooned, unconsciousness supervened; he had come to the end of his tether.

The bad time continued longer than he cared to count. The days slipped by, and still he lay in that bed. One morning he asked her, -

"How's it going?"

"As well as can be expected; better perhaps. But this is not going to be a five minutes' job-you know better than that?"

"I ought to have let old Harford cut it off; I should have made a quicker recovery."

"Nonsense. In that case you would never, in the real sense of the word, have recovered at all. Now there's every probability of your being as sound as ever. You only want time. There's no inflammation; the wound keeps perfectly sweet. You've a fine physique; you've lived cleanly. I counted upon these things when I took the chances."

Two days afterwards he broached another matter.

"You know I can't stop here. I'm putting you to tremendous expense, and no end of inconvenience. The idea's monstrous. I'm ashamed of myself for having stopped so long. You must have me put into the ambulance at once and carted home."

"You will stay where you are. I'm in charge of this case. I decline to allow you to be moved."

"But-!"

"But me no buts. As your medical adviser I refuse to permit of any interference. In such a matter you of all persons ought to set a good example."

He was silent. Not only was he helpless and too weak for argument, but there was in her manner an air of peremptory authority before which he positively quailed. Yet, the next day, he returned to the attack.

"I don't want there to be any misunderstanding between us, so please realise that I'm quite aware that the accident was entirely my fault, that you were in no way to blame, and that therefore you are not in any sense responsible for my present position."

"I know that as well as you do. You ought to have had a bell; no bicyclist ought to be without a bell, especially at night. I did not hear you coming, but you heard me; yet you ran right into me although you heard."

"I lost my head."

"You lost something.

"Therefore I wish to emphasise the fact that I have not the slightest right to encroach upon your hospitality, or your time, or your services."

"Does that mean that you would rather dispense with the latter? Or are you merely again trying to display a refractory spirit?"

"I'm not doing anything of the kind. I simply don't wish to take advantage of your-your generosity."

"Generosity? My good sir, you are mistaken. Yours is an interesting case. I flatter myself that not everybody could have saved that leg of yours. You know how seldom one gets an interesting case at Market Hinton; I mean to make the best of this one now I've got it. You'll regard this as a hospital. And you'll stay in it, as patiently as your nature permits, until, in due course, you receive your discharge."

There was silence. He watched her while she adjusted fresh bandages. He thought that he had never seen work of the kind more deftly done. As she bent over him he noticed what a dainty profile she had, and what beautiful hands. Presently he spoke again.

"Miss Hughes-"

"Dr Hughes, if you please. I didn't proceed to my M.D. degree for nothing."

"I beg your pardon. Dr Hughes, what has become of my patients while I've been lying here?"

"I've been taking them. Do you object?"

"Object! Indeed, no; only-I'm afraid-"

He stopped.

"Yes? What are you afraid of?"

"Nothing; that is-I hardly know how you'll take it."

"What are you afraid of?"

"Only that, when they've once tried you, they won't care to return to me."

"That's it, is it? I thought so. Do you take me to be that kind of person? I'm extremely obliged."

"You're quite mistaken. I didn't mean it in that way at all, as you know. I meant it for a clumsy compliment."

"It's a kind of clumsy compliment I don't care about, thank you very much."

"But, professionally, you are infinitely cleverer than I am."

"Professionally, I am nothing of the kind. It's not fair of you to laugh at me. Wherever I go people tell me how skilful you are, especially those who know. Besides, you need have no fear of illegitimate competition. It is not likely that I shall remain in Market Hinton."

He started.

"You are not going away?"

"I am, most probably. I only came here as an experiment; from my point of view it is an experiment which has failed."

He was still, to speak again after another interval. A more serious note was in his speech.

"Dr Hughes, when that man in the omnibus said I had stolen your purse, did you believe him?"

"I did not."

"Not for an instant?"

"Not for a single instant. And that for the best of reasons; my purse had not been stolen. I could have bitten my tongue off directly I had allowed myself to hint that it might have been; because it instantly occurred to me that it was well within the range of possibility that I had left it behind me at a shop at which I had been making some purchases. I drove straight back to the shop, and there it was."

"Why didn't you allow me to explain?"

"There was nothing for you to explain. As a matter of fact the explanation would have had to come from me, and I was in too bad a temper for that. Women have a reputation for making spectacles of themselves in that particular fashion; it didn't please me to think that I'd fallen in line with my sisters." She added, after a pause: "You've no notion what a vile temper I have."

"I doubt if it's such a very bad one."

"You doubt? You don't! You, of all people, ought to know what kind of temper I've got."

He smiled enigmatically.

"I do."

It was some time afterwards, when he had advanced to the dignity of an easy-chair and a leg-rest, that some of the points of that conversation were touched on again. It was he who began.

"Dr Hughes."

"Doctor Palliser?"

The emphasis which she laid upon the "Doctor" was most pronounced.

"Pardon me, I am not a doctor, I am a mere F.R.C.S."

"Is it necessary that you should always 'Doctor' me?"

"Pardon me again. I remember an occasion when you went a little out of your way to make it plain to me that you had not proceeded to your M.D. degree for nothing."

"You needn't always flaunt that in my face."

"I won't, since you appear to have changed your mind-until you change it again." She looked at him, with a gleam in her eyes which was half laughter, half something else. He went on: "At the same time, since what I have to say to you is strictly professional, I don't think that, on this occasion, the 'Doctor' Hughes will be out of place. You once said to me that you had some vague intention of not remaining in Market Hinton."

"It wasn't a vague intention then; it is less vague now. I am going."

"That is a pity."

"Why? It will be all the better for you; one competitor less."

"I am afraid I don't see it altogether in that light. You see, I was thinking of taking a partner."

"A partner?"

"Exactly, a partner. The practice was getting a little beyond me. When I am able to move about again, as I soon shall be, thanks to you, it may get beyond me again. Now what would you say to taking a partner?"

"I! What! Bring another woman here?"

"No, I was not thinking of that. Indeed, I was not thinking of a woman at all. I was thinking of a man."

"A man!"

"I was thinking of myself."

"You! Mr Palliser!"

"Why shouldn't we-you and I-be partners? Miss Hughes-Dr Constance" – suddenly, as he went on she looked down-"don't you think that it is possible that we might work together? That an arrangement might be made which-would be agreeable to us both?"

"Of course-there is always a possibility."

"Don't you think that, in this instance, there's a probability?"

"There might be."

"Don't you feel that such an arrangement would be, from all possible points of view, a desirable one? I do; I feel it strongly."

"Do you?"

"Don't you?" She was silent; so he continued, "I'd give all I have in the world, all I hope to have, to hear you say that you'd like us to be partners."

She looked up at him.

"I'd like to have-you for a partner," she said.

REWARDED

I

"Am I altered?"

She was, and yet was not. In one sense, not so much as he had expected. In another sense, more. Or was the alteration in himself? Mr Ferguson was conscious of a curious qualm as he recognised that at least the thing was possible.

He had told himself, over and over again, not only that he was not a romantic man, but that there was no romance about the story. He had loved Helen Sinclair when he was scarcely more than a boy, and when she was, certainly, nothing but a girl. Sir Matthew Griswold had come her way, and-well-she had married him. How much her mother had had to do with the match, and how much she herself had had to do with it, was a matter Mr Ferguson never could determine. Griswold was scarcely more than half an Englishman. His mother had left him large estates in South America. To those estates he had departed with his wife. On those estates for eighteen-or was it nineteen? – years Lady Griswold had practically resided.

If Mr Ferguson was broken-hearted when his love forsook him, he concealed the fact with admirable ability. Indeed, it is an open question whether, very soon, he did not tell himself that it was just as well. A poor wife, possibly any sort of wife, might have proved a drag on his career. For he had a career. And, in a certain way, he had succeeded in that career to quite a remarkable extent. He was M.P. for the Culmshire Boroughs. He had made a name in literature. Literature, that is, of a kind. Not light and fanciful, but matter-of-fact and solid. He was, in fact, that wholly indescribable personage, a promising politician. He was beginning to feel, and possibly others were beginning to feel as well, that there was only one thing needed to enable him to turn the promise into fulfilment. That thing was money. He was not, in a positive sense, a poor man. In a relative sense, he was. He was very far from being as rich as he felt that he ought to be if he was ever to occupy that position in politics which he would like to occupy.

Helen Sinclair had sent him a little note when her marriage with Sir Matthew was finally arranged. Mr Ferguson had not replied to it. She had particularly desired that he would not reply. After that there had been no communication between them for years. Mr Ferguson, of course, was aware that Lady Griswold was still alive. The Griswolds were sufficiently important personages in English society to be heard of now and then, even from that remote portion of the world, from an English social point of view, in which they chose to dwell.

One day a certain young friend of Mr Ferguson's made up his mind to travel in South America. He came and asked Mr Ferguson if he could make him known to any persons "over there." The request was, geographically, rather vaguely worded, but Mr Ferguson, smiling to himself as he wrote, gave him a note of introduction to Lady Griswold, in case he should get, say, within a hundred miles of her. That young man got within a hundred miles of her. He made a long sojourn with the Griswolds. They made much of him. Lady Griswold even went so far as to write and thank Mr Ferguson for having thought of her. Mr Ferguson replied to her letter. The lady replied again. And so, between them, there grew up a curious correspondence, a correspondence which, if they had only known it, was in its way pathetic. Perhaps, after a fashion of their own, they did recognise the pathos of the thing. Then Sir Matthew died. He was thirty years older than his wife. The widow, in her distress, wrote to Ronald-Mr Ferguson was once more "Ronald" to her-in her grief. And, in soothing her sorrow, Mr Ferguson had dropped a hint. When he wrote again he dropped another hint. And then another, and another, and another. By degrees the widow began to take the hints. The end of it was, that, after many years of exile, Lady Griswold had come home.

Mr Ferguson understood quite well that it was because of those hints which he had dropped that Lady Griswold had come home. He had not written one plain word. Nothing which she would be able to fasten on and say, "Did you not write this, or that, and so deceive me?" His political training had tended to develop the bump of caution which he had originally possessed. "Non-committal" was the watchword for him. He was unwilling to commit himself to any person, in any way, on any subject whatsoever. Experience had taught him, or had seemed to teach him, that that was the safest policy. But he certainly had dropped those hints. And, as it appeared to him, with cause.

It is true enough that, since he was left forlorn, he had never thought of marriage. Never once, until Sir Matthew died. He had discovered, with an old sensation of surprise, that he had still a tenderness for his boyhood's love. Though until he saw Lady Griswold's handwriting-she wrote the same hand which she had written as a girl-he had been unaware of the fact during all these years. That young man had sent Mr Ferguson a glowing account of his sojourn with the Griswolds. According to him, Lady Griswold was the most charming woman in the world. And so young. The traveller protested that she scarcely looked as if she were more than twenty. Even allowing for the natural exaggeration of grateful youth, this sounded well. In her letters Lady Griswold had herself declared that she felt young. She only had one child, a girl. That young man scarcely spoke of the girl. Lady Griswold alluded to her rarely. When Mr Ferguson heard that Sir Matthew had divided his vast possessions equally between his wife and his daughter, and that the widow was free to do with her portion exactly what she pleased, his heart actually throbbed a little faster in his breast. Here was the wealth he needed to make his standing sure. It was then he dropped a more decisive hint than any other of the hints which he had dropped, the hint which had induced Lady Griswold to come home.

She had told him that he was not to meet her on her arrival in her native land. She would let him know when he was to call on her in town. She had let him know. He had waited on her command. He had been conscious of a slight internal fluttering as he came up the stairs. Now he held her by the hand.

"Am I altered?"

It was when she asked that question that Mr Ferguson had been made aware of that curious qualm. She had not altered anything like so much as might reasonably have been expected. She showed not the slightest sign of having lived in such a very trying climate. She was, perhaps, a little filled out. Perhaps a little more stately. There was about her the certain something which so distinctly divides the woman from the girl. But there was not a wrinkle on her face. Not a line of sorrow or of care. She looked at him, too, with the eyes of a girl; she certainly looked very much more like twenty-six than thirty-six. And yet! -

And yet, what? It is rather difficult to put the matter into words. The truth is, that as he stood in front of her, holding her hand in his, looking into her eyes, he felt an absolute conviction that this was not the sort of woman that he cared for. That this was not the sort of woman that he ever could care for now. But he could not tell her so. Just as little could he leave her inquiry unanswered.

"No, I do not think that you have altered."

Her womanly perception was not to be deceived.

"You are saying that to please me. I see you do think that I have altered."

"I think that you have grown younger."

"Ronald!"

She dropped her eyes, as a young girl might drop her eyes on receiving her first compliment. The blood showed through her cheeks. He felt that she expected him to say something else. But he could not say it.

"And me-what do you think of the changes which have taken place in me?"

She looked up at him shyly, with a shyness which he found curiously embarrassing.

"You are just what I expected you would be. See here."

Taking him by the hand she led him to a table. On the table lay a photographic album. The album was of considerable size. It seemed to be full of photographs. She opened it.

"See," she said, "I have them all. At least, I think I have them all."

The album contained nothing but photographs of Mr Ferguson. He filled it from cover to cover. When he perceived this was so, he was tongue-tied. He felt, almost, as if he were some guilty thing. She went on, -

"I made arrangements with someone over here-he is in a news agency, or something. I told him to find out whenever you were photographed and to send me copies. So you see that I have been able to follow the changes which have taken place in you from year to year."

He said nothing. He could say nothing. He could only turn over the leaves of that photographic album.

"But I not only have your photographs, I have every speech you ever made. I have read them over and over again. I believe I know some of them by heart. I have everything you ever wrote. I have records of you which will surprise you, one day, when you see them, Ronald." She paused. Then added, half beneath her breath: "And you? Did you take any interest in me?"