"She must be
left alone."
For an instant it seemed that the old man was going to resist the
dictation; but presently, after a scrutinizing look at the still,
shrinking figure in the bed, he swung round, left the room and descended
the stairs, the Young Doctor following.
CHAPTER III
"I HAVE FOUGHT WITH BEASTS AT EPHESUS"
The old man led the way outside the house, as though to be rid of his
visitor as soon as possible. This was so obvious that, for an instant,
the Young Doctor was disposed to try conclusions with the old slaver, and
summon him back to the dining-room. The Mazarine sort of man always
roused fighting, masterful forces in him. He was never averse to a
contest of wills, and he had had much of it; it was inseparable from his
methods of healing. He knew that nine people out of ten never gave a true
history of their physical troubles, never told their whole story: first
because they had no gift for reporting, no observation; and also because
the physical ailments of many of them were aggravated or induced by
mental anxieties. Then it was that he imposed himself; as it were, fought
the deceiver and his deceit, or the ignorant one and his ignorance; and
numbers of people, under his sympathetic, wordless inquiry, poured their
troubles into his ears, as the girl-wife upstairs had tried to do.
When the old man turned to face him in the sunlight, his boots soiled
with dust and manure, his long upper lip feeling about over the lower lip
and its shaggy growth of beard like some sea-monster feeling for its
prey, the Young Doctor had a sensation of rancour.
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