CHAPTER VIII
I
"Don't I, in looking for things to do, show that I'm not attentive enough to Will? Am I impressed enough by his work? I will be. Oh, I will be. If I can't be one of the town, if I must be an outcast———"
When Kennicott came home she bustled, "Dear, you must tell me a lot more about your cases. I want to know. I want to understand."
"Sure. You bet." And he went down to fix the furnace.
At supper she asked, "For instance, what did you do today?"
"Do today? How do you mean?"
"Medically. I want to understand———"
"Today? Oh, there wasn't much of anything: couple chumps with bellyaches, and a sprained wrist, and a fool woman that thinks she wants to kill herself because her husband doesn't like her and——— Just routine work."
"But the unhappy woman doesn't sound routine!"
"Her? Just case of nerves. You can't do much with these marriage mix-ups."
"But dear, please, will you tell me about the next case that you do think is interesting?"
"Sure. You bet. Tell you about anything that——— Say, that's pretty good salmon. Get it at Rowland's?"
II
Four days after the Jolly Seventeen débâcle Vida Sherwin called and casually blew Carol's world to pieces.
"May I come in and gossip a while?" she said, with such excess of bright innocence that Carol was uneasy. Vida took off her furs with a bounce, she sat down as though it were a gymnasium exercise, she flung out:
"Feel disgracefully good, this weather! Raymond Wutherspoon says if he had my energy he'd be a grand opera singer.
93
