You MUST
have noticed that my wife is a lady of exceptionally delicate nervous
organisation." He hesitated, beamed on me, and played his trump card.
"She dislikes being attended by owt but a GENTLEMAN."
"If a gentleman is also a medical man," I answered, "his sense of duty
towards his brother practitioners would, of course, prevent him from
interfering in their proper sphere, or putting upon them the unmerited
slight of letting them see him preferred before them."
"Then you positively refuse?" he asked, wistfully, drawing back. I could
see he stood in a certain dread of that imperious little woman.
I conceded a point. "I will go down in twenty minutes," I admitted,
looking grave,--"not just now, lest I annoy my colleague,--and I will
glance at Lady Meadowcroft in an unprofessional way. If I think her
case demands treatment, I will tell Dr. Boyell." And I returned to the
smoking-room and took up a novel.
Twenty minutes later I knocked at the door of the lady's private cabin,
with my best bedside manner in full play. As I suspected, she was
nervous--nothing more--my mere smile reassured her. I observed that
she held her thumb fast, doubled under in her fist, all the time I was
questioning her, as Hilda had said; and I also noticed that the fingers
closed about it convulsively at first, but gradually relaxed as my voice
restored confidence.
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