the room had a sunny stillness. the sun poured in at the window on the whiteness and on the figure lying on the couch and on the young doctor bending toward it and adjusting the ether cone with light touch, and on aunt jane rocking placidly in her chair by the couch.
"you won't mind it a mite," said aunt jane. her hand held the thin one in its warm clasp. "you won't mind.... dr. doty'll give it to you, nice. he's about the best one we've got—to give it."
the doctor smiled at the words—a boyish, whimsical smile at flattery. he adjusted the cone a little. "breathe deep," he said gently.
there was silence in the room—only a little burring sound somewhere, and the soft creak of aunt jane's rockers as they moved to and fro.
the door of the operating-room stood open. through the crack aunt jane could see a[pg 48] round, stout figure, enveloped from head to foot in its rubber apron, bending over a tray of instruments. the great arms, bare to the shoulders, the exposed neck, and round head with short bristling hair, a little bald at the top, gave a curious sense of alert power and force.
aunt jane had never seen a picture of st. george and the dragon, or of st. michael. she had scant material for comparison. but i suspect if she had seen through the open door of the operating-room, either of these saints fastening on his greaves—whatever greaves may be—and getting ready for the dragon, he would have seemed to her a less heroic and noble and beautiful figure than the short, square man, bending over his case of instruments and selecting a particularly sharp and glittering one for use.
the young doctor leaning over the figure on the couch moved a little and lifted his head. "all right," he said quietly. he nodded toward the door of the operating-room.
a nurse appeared in the doorway.
aunt jane pushed back her chair; and the nurse and doctor, at either end, lifted the[pg 49] movable top of the couch by its handles and carried the light burden easily between them to the open door.
aunt jane watched till the door was shut.... her work began and ended at the door of the operating-room.
inside that door, dr. carmon was supreme. elsewhere in the hospital aunt jane might treat him as a mere man; she might criticise and advise, and even rebuke the surgeon for whose use the hospital had been built and endowed. but within the operating-room he was supreme. she allowed patients to enter that door without word or comment, and she received them back from his hands with a childlike humility that went a long way—it may be—toward reconciling the surgeon to her rule elsewhere.
"aunt jane knows what she knows—and what she doesn't know," dr. carmon had been heard to say. and if she regarded him as a mere man, it is only fair to say that he, in turn, looked upon aunt jane as a woman; a mere woman, perhaps, but remarkably sensible—for a woman.
when the door of the operating-room closed[pg 50] upon her, aunt jane stood a minute in the sunny room, looking tranquilly about. she drew down a shade and returned the rocking-chair to its place and went quietly out.
in the corridor, nurses were coming and going with long, light boxes or tall vases and great handfuls of fragrant blossoms. the florist's wagon had just come; the corridor was filled with light and movement and the fresh scent of flowers. aunt jane beamed on it all and passed on.
it was one of the pleasantest hours of the day for aunt jane. she knew that scrubbing and sweeping and dusting were done—every inch of the hard floors clean with carbolic and soap, every patient bathed and fed, and the beds freshly made—everything in order for doctor's visits—and inspection. through an open door, here and there as she went, she caught a glimpse of a black-coated shoulder or arm by the side of some bed. aunt jane had no fear of adverse criticism on her hospital or of complaint of her way of doing things.
she moved serenely on.
then, at a door, she stopped. it was at the far end of the corridor; and through the[pg 51] half-curtained glass of the door she looked into a great sunny room that extended across the width of the house and opened on one side to the sky and all outdoors.
it was filled with small cots and beds and cribs.
