He climbed the stairs and put his worn key in the lock of his office door. The key would not turn. He set his bag on the floor and exerted pressure. The key refused to budge. He grabbed the doorknob and pulled outward and rattled the key. The door was opened from within. Kate stood in front of him.

“Oh, good morning. Lock was stuck. How did you get in?”

“It wasn’t locked. I was early and came in to wait.”

“Wasn’t locked?” He turned the key the other way and saw that, sure enough, the little bar slipped out easily.

“I’m getting old, I guess,” he said. “I’m forgetful.” He sighed. “I don’t know why I lock it anyway. You could get in with a piece of baling wire. And who’d want to get in anyway?” He seemed to see her for the first time. “I don’t have office hours until eleven.”

Kate said, “I needed some more of those pills and I couldn’t come later.”

“Pills? Oh, yes. You’re the girl from down at Faye’s.”

“That’s right.”

“Feeling better?”

“Yes, the pills help.”

“Well, they can’t hurt,” he said. “Did I leave the door to the dispensary open too?”

“What’s a dispensary?”

“Over there—that door.”

“I guess you must have.”

“Getting old. How is Faye?”

“Well, I’m worried about her. She was real sick a while ago. Had cramps and went a little out of her head.”

“She’s had a stomach disorder before,” Dr. Wilde said. “You can’t live like that and eat at all hours and be very well. I can’t anyway. We just call it stomach trouble. Comes from eating too much and staying up all night. Now—the pills. Do you remember what color?”

“There were three kinds, yellow, red, and green.”

“Oh, yes. Yes, I remember.”

While he poured pills into a round cardboard box she stood in the door.

“What a lot of medicines!”

Dr. Wilde said, “Yes—and the older I get, the fewer I use. I got some of those when I started to practice. Never used them. That’s a beginner’s stock. I was going to experiment—alchemy.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Here you are. Tell Faye to get some sleep and eat some vegetables. I’ve been up all night. Let yourself out, will you?” He went wavering back into the surgery.

Kate glanced after him and then her eyes flicked over the lines of bottles and containers. She closed the dispensary door and looked around the outer office. One book in the case was out of line. She pushed it back until it was shoulder to shoulder with its brothers.

She picked up her big handbag from the leather sofa and left.

In her own room Kate took five small bottles and a strip of scribbled paper from her handbag. She put the whole works in the toe of a stocking, pushed the wad into a rubber overshoe, and stood it with its fellow in the back of her closet.

[3]

During the following months a gradual change came over Faye’s house. The girls were sloppy and touchy. If they had been told to clean themselves and their rooms a deep resentment would have set in and the house would have reeked of ill temper. But it didn’t work that way.