It put him very much out of patience to have his eyes bothering him just when he was so anxious to work. What in the world was the matter with them, he wondered, as he directed a couple of students on some work they were helping him with. It seemed that yesterday afternoon he had taken a new start; now he was eager to work things out while he felt like this. This was a very inopportune time for a cold, or whatever it was, to settle in his eyes. Perhaps the lights at the theatre last night, and then the wind coming home--but he smiled an intimate little smile with himself at thought of last night and forgot all about that sandy feeling in his eyes.
During the morning it almost passed away. When he thought of it at all, it was only to be thankful it was not amounting to anything, for he was anxious to do a good day's work. He would hate it if anything were to happen to his eyes and he had to wear glasses! He had never had the slightest trouble with them; in fact they had served him so well that he never gave them any thought. The idea came now of how impossible it would be to do anything without them. His work depended entirely on seeing things right; it was the appearance of things in their different stages which told the story.
Dr. Hubers had a queer little trick with his eyes; the students who worked with him had often noticed it. He had a way of resting his finger in the corner of his eye when thinking. Sometimes it would rest in one eye for awhile, and then if he became a little restless, moved under a new thought, he would slip his finger meditatively over his nose to the corner of the other eye. It did not signify anything in particular, merely an unconscious mannerism. Some men pull their hair, others gnaw their under lip, and with him it was a queer little way of rubbing his finger in his eye.
It was Saturday, and that was always a good day for him as he could give all of his time to the laboratory. He was especially anxious to have things go well this morning, as he wanted to stop at two o'clock and go down to one of Dr. Parkman's operations. That end of it was very important and this was to be an especially good operation.
He was thinking about Dr. Parkman on the way down;--of the man's splendid surgery. It was a real joy to see him work. He did big things so very easily and quietly; not at all as though they were overwhelming him. Poor Parkman--things should have gone differently with him. If it had been almost any other man, it would have mattered less, but it seemed a matter of a lifetime with Parkman. He could understand that better now than he once had. To have found Ernestine and then--then to have found she was
not Ernestine! But of course in the case of Ernestine that could not be. Now if Parkman had only found an Ernestine--but then he couldn't very well, for there was only one! Since the first of time, there had been only one--and she was his! He fell to dreaming of how she had looked last night in the fire-light, and almost forgot the station at which he was to get off.
He was in very jubilant mood when they went down to Dr. Parkman's office after the operation. It had verified some of his own conclusions; seemed fairly to stand as an endorsement of what he held. He had never felt more sure of himself, had never seen his way more clearly. It was a great thing to have facts bear one out, to see made real what one had believed to be true. He went over it all with Parkman, putting his case clearly, convincingly, his points standing out true and unassailable; throwing away all the irrelevant, picking out unerringly, the little kernel of truth;--a big mind this, a mind qualified to cope with big problems. Dr. Parkman had never seen so clearly as he did to-day how absolutely his friend possessed those peculiar qualities the work demanded. He had never felt more sure of Karl's power; and power did not cover it--not quite.
"Something in your eye?" he asked when, just as Karl was about to leave, he seemed to be bothered with his eye, and was rubbing it a little.
"I don't know. It's felt off and on all day as though something was the matter with them both."
"Want me to take a look at them?"
"Oh no--no, it's nothing."
"By the way, you have a bad trick with your eyes. I've noticed it several times lately and intended to tell you about it. You have a way of rubbing them;--not rubbing them exactly, but pressing your finger in them. I'd quit that if I were you. If you must put your finger somewhere, put it on your nose. A man dealing with the stuff you do can't be too careful."
"Why, what do you mean?"
"Simply what I say. One drop of some of those things you have out there would be--a drop too much."
"Now, look here, you don't think I'm any such a bungler as that, do you?"
"Hum! You ought to know your medical history well enough to know that all the victims haven't been bunglers, by a long sight."
Karl's hand was on the knob. "Well, don't worry about me; I'm not built for a victim. I may be run over by an automobile--anybody is liable to be run over by yours, the way you run that thing--but I'm not liable to be killed by my own sword. That's not the way I work."
"Just the same, you'd better keep your hands out of your eyes!"
"All right," he agreed laughingly. "It does sound like a fool's trick. It's new to me;--didn't know that I did it."
When he was making some calls late that evening, Dr. Parkman passed the university and for some reason recalled what Karl had said that afternoon about his eyes bothering him. Why hadn't he examined them; or better still, one of the best oculists in the city was right there in the building--why hadn't he made Karl go in to see him? It was criminal for a man like that to neglect his eyes! He was near the Hubers now; he had an impulse to run over and make sure that everything was all right. He slowed up the machine and looked at his watch. No, it was almost eleven; he would not go now. After all he was silly to be attaching any weight to such a thing as a man's rubbing his eyes. He smiled a little as he thought of it that way. Karl wasn't bothering about it; so why should he?
But he had it on his mind, thinking of it frequently until he went to bed. And the thing which worried him most was that he was worrying a great deal more than the facts in the case warranted. He was not given to taking notions, and that was just what this seemed. One would suppose that a man like Hubers would be able to look out for himself,--"but for a fool, give me a great man!" was the thought with which the doctor went to sleep.