“What—what d’ you think of it? Is it possible? Is there any meaning to it? I can’t quite make it out,” he cried.
“I can,” said the doctor. “I lose seven thousand a year—that’s all.” He thought of the struggling New York practice he had dropped at Cheyne’s imperious bidding, and returned the telegram with a sigh.
“You mean you’d tell her? ’May be a fraud?”
“What’s the motive?” said the doctor, coolly. “Detection’s too certain. It’s the boy sure enough.”
Enter a French maid, impudently, as an indispensable one who is kept on only by large wages.
“ Mrs. Cheyne she say you must come at once. She think you are seek.”
The master of thirty millions bowed his head meekly and followed Suzanne; and a thin, high voice on the upper landing of the great whitewood square staircase cried: “What is it? What has happened?”
No doors could keep out the shriek that rang through the echoing house a moment later, when her husband blurted out the news.
“And that’s all right,” said the doctor, serenely, to the typewriter. “About the only medical statement in novels with any truth to it is that joy don’t kill, Miss Kinzey.”
“I know it; but we’ve a heap to do first.” Miss Kinzey was from Milwaukee, somewhat direct of speech; and as her fancy leaned towards the secretary, she divined there was work in hand. He was looking earnestly at the vast roller-map of America on the wall.
“Milsom, we’re going right across. Private car—straight through—Boston. Fix the connections,” shouted Cheyne down the staircase.