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Sevier scrawled and sent to the Richlings a line, saying that, if either of them was sick, he would come at their call. When the messenger returned with word from Mrs. Riley that both of them were out, the Doctor's mind was much relieved. So a day and a night passed in which he did not close his eyes.
Fo w'at you come in yeh?" "My dear madam! My husband" "Dass you' uzban'?" pointing at him. "Yes!" cried the two Richlings at once. The woman folded her arms again, turned half-aside, and, lifting her eyes to the ceiling, simply remarked, with an ecstatic smile: "Humph!" and left the pair, red with exasperation, to find the street again through the darkening cave of the stair-way.
Yes, the tide was coming in. The Richlings' bark was still on the sands, but every now and then a wave of promise glided under her. She might float, now, any day. Meantime, as has no doubt been guessed, she was held on an even keel by loans from the Doctor. "Why you don't advertise in papers?" asked Ristofalo. "Advertise? Oh, I didn't think it would be of any use.
"For the summer," said the physician. As, later, he walked toward that hotel, he went resolving to look up the Richlings again without delay. The banker's words rang in his ears like an overdose of quinine: "Watch the young man out of one corner of your eye. Make him swim. I don't say let him drown." "Well, I do watch him," thought the Doctor. "I've only lost sight of him once in a while."
But even this renews the pain of separation, and Dr. Sevier felt, right here at this door-step, that, if this was to be the last of the Richlings, he would feel the twinge of parting every time they came up again in his memory.
I wish I could stay to do more, for the sake of old times. I came to see Mr. Richling, Madame Zénobie; is he in? Dr. Sevier wants him." Richling? Why, the Richlings did not live there! The Doctor must know it. Why should she be made responsible for this mistake? It was his oversight. They had moved long ago. Dr. Sevier had seen them looking for apartments. Where did they live now?
Narcisse surprised the Richlings one evening with a call. They tried very hard to be reserved, but they were too young for that task to be easy. The Creole had evidently come with his mind made up to take unresentfully and override all the unfriendliness they might choose to show. His conversation never ceased, but flitted from subject to subject with the swift waywardness of a humming-bird.
Riley, by prolonged effort, convinced her it was best not to call upon Dr. Sevier until she could be sure some disaster had actually occurred, and sent her among the fruiterers and oystermen in vain search for Raphael Ristofalo. Thus it was that the Doctor's morning messenger to the Richlings, bearing word that if any one were sick he would call without delay, was met by Mrs.
As he was driving up at the sidewalk's edge before his patient's door, the Richlings came out of theirs, the husband talking with animation, and the wife, all sunshine, skipping up to his side, and taking his arm with both hands, and attending eagerly to his words. "Heels!" muttered the Doctor to himself, for the sound of Mrs. Richling's gaiters betrayed that fact.
It wouldn't be the first time he had caught the poor taking savage comfort in the blush which their poverty was supposed to bring to the cheek of better-kept kinsfolk. True, he didn't know this was the case with the Richlings. But wasn't it? Wasn't it? And have they a dog, that will presently hurl himself down this alley at one's legs? He hopes so.
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