We must go on. Command me in
everything else, but we must go on--for a time. To-night I will
sleep. I will sleep like the dead. So, My Captain," he laughed,
"may I have your permission to work to-day?"
Jeanne was turning the bow shoreward. Her back was turned to him
again.
"You have no pity on me," she pouted. "Pierre would be good to me,
and we would fish all day in that pretty pool over there. I'll bet
it's full of trout."
Her words, her manner of speaking them, was a new revelation to
Philip. She was delightful. He laughed, and his voice rang out in
the clear morning like a school-boy's. Jeanne pretended that she
saw nothing to laugh at, and no sooner had the canoe touched shore
than she sprang lightly out, not waiting for his assistance. With
a laughing cry, she stumbled and fell. Philip was at her side in
an instant.
"You shouldn't have done that," he objected. "I am your doctor,
and I insist that your foot is not well."
"But it is!" cried Jeanne, and he saw that there was laughter
instead of pain in her eyes. "It's the bandage. My right foot
feels like that of a Chinese debutante. Ugh! I'm going to undo
it."
"You've been to China, too," mused Philip, half to himself.
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