CHAPTER XXXV
Dr. Little descended the stairs of Major Murray’s house with the alert and rather furtive look of a man who has been for days subjected to the semi-sceptical questions of interested relatives. Parker Steel had attended at the introduction of a third Miss Murray into the world; the whole affair had seemed but the ordinary yearly incident in the great, rambling, florid-faced house, whose windows appeared to have copied its owner’s military stare. It was during Dr. Little’s regency that Major Murray’s wife had developed certain sinister symptoms that had worried the locum-tenens very seriously. Concern for his own self-conceit rather than concern for the patient, characterized Dr. Little’s attitude towards the case. The professional spirit when cultivated to the uttermost end of complexity, becomes an impersonation of the intellectual ego.
A thin, acute-faced woman with sandy hair appeared at the dining-room door as Dr. Little reached the hall. This lady with the sandy hair and freckles happened to be the most inquisitive, suspicious, and unrebuffable of sisters that Dr. Little had ever encountered on guard over her brother’s domestic happiness.
“Good-morning.”
“Damn the woman—Ah, good-morning.”
Miss Murray’s attitude betrayed the inevitable catechisation. Dr. Little followed her into the dining-room.
“And how do you find my sister-in-law this morning. Dr. Little?”
Miss Murray had an aggressive, expeditious manner that disorganized any ordinary mortal’s sense of self-sufficiency and vain repose. In action her hair seemed to become sandier in color, her freckles more yellow and independent. In speech she reminded thelocum-tenensof a quick-firing gun whose exasperating detonations numbered so many snaps a minute.
“Mrs. Murray is no worse this morning. In fact—I can—”
“The temperature?”
“The temperature is a little above normal.”
Dr. Little’s “distinguished air” became ten times more distinguished. He articulated in his throat, and began to pull on his gloves with gestures of great finality.
“Did you notice that reddish rash?”
“It is our duty, Miss Murray, to notice such things.”
“And the throat? It seems very red and angry—”
“A certain degree of pharyngitis is present.”
“Well, and what’s the meaning of it all, Dr. Little?”
“Meaning, Miss Murray? Really—”
“There’s a cause for everything, I imagine.”
“Certainly. The problem—”
“You admit then that there is something problematic in the case, Dr. Little.”
“There is a problem in every—”
“Of course. But in my sister-in-law’s case, that is the matter under discussion.”
“Pardon me, madam, it is impossible to discuss certain—”
“My brother desires something definite. He was obliged to go to town to-day.”
“I should prefer to give my opinion—”
“Major Murray left instructions that I should wire to his club—”
“His club?”
“Whether any definite conclusion had been arrived at.”
The two disputants had been volleying and counter-volleying at point-blank range. Neither displayed any sign of giving ground or of surrender. The Scotch lady’s voice had harshened into a slight rasp of natural Gaelic. Dr. Little still fumbled at the buttons of his gloves, his words very much in his throat, his whole pose characteristic of the profession upon its dignity.
“It is quite impossible, Miss Murray, for me to discuss this case.”
The thin lady’s pupils were no bigger than pin-heads, so that her eyes looked like two circles of hard, blue glass.
“Very well, Dr. Little. I must telegraph to my brother that no conclusion has been reached—”
“Pardon me, that would be indiscreet—”
“To provide—me—with a solution!”
The distinguished gentleman had completed the buttoning of his gloves.
“I shall hope to see Major Murray in person to-morrow.”
“You shall see him, Dr. Little, without fail.”
Thelocum-tenensconducted a dignified retreat, fully aware of the fact that the sandy-haired lady believed him to be an ignoramus.
“Confound the woman! How can I tell her what I think?” he reflected. “It seems to me that there is half a ton of domestic dynamite waiting to be exploded in that house. I hardly relish the responsibility. If matters don’t clear in a day or two, I shall wire for Steel. It is his case, not mine.”
To a much-hustled man, whose temper had been chastened by a series of irritating incidents, the picture of a pretty woman smiling up at him from a neat luncheon-table revivified the more sensuous satisfactions of existence. Men who live to eat, smoke, and enjoy the curves of a woman’s figure are in the main very docile mortals. The savor of a well-cooked entrée will dispel despair and bring down heaven.
Dr. Little sat down with a grieved sigh, unfolded his napkin, and accepted Miss Ellison’s sympathy as though it were his just and sovereign due. He still had a vision of freckles and sandy hair, and echoes of an aggressive voice that revived memories of the dame school he had attended when in frocks.
“What a morning you must have had! It is nearly two.”
“A delightful morning, I can assure you. Excuse me, Miss Ellison, the cover of that magazine you have been reading reminds me of a certain female’s hair. Would you mind removing it from sight?”
“Is the memory so poignant?”
“Poignant! And she has freckles the size of pease. Ugh! I wonder why it is that one’s patients always seem to conspire against one by being mulish and irritating all on the same day?”
“Something in the air, perhaps. Poor man!”
“Poor man, it is, I assure you, when you have had a series of cantankerous old ladies to blarney. I wonder if I might have a glass of sherry? Oh, don’t bother, let me get it.”
As though the mere offer absolved him from all further effort, Dr. Little sat still and fed while Madge Ellison rummaged in the sideboard for the decanter.
“How much, a tumblerful?”
She bent over him as she poured out the wine, the gold chain she wore dangling against his cheek.
“Thanks. Three fingers. How angelic a thing is woman!”
“Even when she has freckles and straw-colored hair?”
“Forbear, forbear. Ah, now I began to revive a little.”
He drank the wine, wiped his mustache, and leaned back in his chair as though to reflect on the natural philosophy of life. Madge Ellison entered into the system as a pleasing and satisfactory protoplasmic development. To this bachelor, who already showed a tendency to plumpness below the heart, she was bracketed with good wine, nine-penny cigars, and well-cooked dishes, a thing pleasant to look at and pleasant perhaps to taste.
“How is Mrs. Steel?”
Cutlets and new pease were pushed aside. Dr. Little helped himself generously to sponge custard, his eyes fixed affectionately upon the dish.
“I am rather worried about Betty.”
“Worried?”
The bachelor began to look sleek and happy. His outlook upon life changed greatly after a few magical passes with a spoon and fork.
“I wish you would go up and see her after lunch.”
“Anything to oblige a lady who can show no freckles. What is the woe? A cold in the head?”
Madge Ellison had returned to her chair, and was rocking it gracefully to and fro on two legs. She might have posed as a living metronome marking the rhythm for the epicure’s busy spoon.
“How frivolous you doctors are!”
Dr. Little wiped a streak of custard from his mustache with his dinner napkin.
“It is my hour of relaxation. Haven’t you heard the tale of the two bishops who played leap-frog at the end of a church conference. But, to be serious, what are the symptoms?”
“She seems rather feverish and has a sore throat. I noticed something that looked like herpes on her lip.”
“Herpes, eh? Will she let me see her?”
“I’ll run up and ask.”
“Thanks. Is the paper reposing anywhere? Oh, don’t bother. On the window-sill? Thanks, much obliged.”
And he propped the paper against the decanter, and so consoled himself with the happy facility of a bachelor.
Betty Steel, in a richly laced dressing-jacket, was sitting up in bed with Persian Mignon in her lap.
“Bring the man up, dear, if it will give you any satisfaction. Any news in the town?”
Madge Ellison sat down and chatted for five minutes, while the cat purred under Betty’s hand.
“I saw Kate Murchison in Castle Gate this morning.”
“Alone?”
“No; being convoyed by the Canoness.”
Betty Steel’s mouth curved into a sneer.
“A most respectable connection. Did you see any blue ribbon about?”
“You are rather hard on the poor wretches, Betty.”
“Am I?” and she gave a short, sharp laugh; “every woman sides with her husband—I suppose. You might rub some scent on my forehead, dear.”
Dr. Little finished a cigar, and yawned in turn over every page of the paper before ascending to Mrs. Betty’s room. Madge Ellison opened the door to him. His shoulder brushed her arm as he entered, quite the professional Agag where the patient was a woman and under fifty.
Dr. Little remained some fifteen minutes beside Mrs. Betty’s bed. His air of lazy refinement left him by degrees, giving place to the interested and puzzled alertness of the physician. It was the curious nodular swelling on Parker Steel’s wife’s lip that led him to discover glandular enlargement under her round, white chin.
“Hair falling out at all?” he asked, casually.
“Why refer to a woman’s one eternal woe?”
“Oh, nothing,” and he smiled a little stiffly; “the throat is sore, is it not?”
“Yes.”
“Let me look. Turn to the light, please. Open the mouth wide, and say ‘ah.’ Hum, yes, rather inflamed,” and Dr. Little, after moving his head from side to side, like a man peering down the bowl of a pipe, drew back from the bed, his eyes fixed momentarily on Betty Steel’s face with a peculiarly intent stare.
“I’ll send you up a gargle for the throat.”
“Thanks. I shall be all right for Saturday, I suppose?”
“I hope so.”
“It is the last rehearsal. I must not miss it.”
“Have you heard from Dr. Steel to-day?”
Betty was holding Mignon’s head between her two hands, and looking into the cat’s yellow eyes. Something in the intonation of Dr. Little’s voice seemed to startle her. She glanced up at him with a questioning smile.
“I expect him back in a week or so. Madge, get me that letter, dear. I think he said next Wednesday. Is there anything—?”
Little had moved towards the door.
“I only wanted to know the date. I promised some months ago to do locum work for an old friend next week.”
Betty had glanced through her husband’s letter. She laid it aside when Dr. Little had gone, and took Mignon back into her lap.
“That man’s worried about something, Madge,” she said.
“Worried, not a bit of it, dear.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not in the bachelor nature to worry, provided food is plentiful and work slack. Pins wouldn’t prick him. They’re selfish beasts.”
“I thought you liked the man, Madge.”
“The men we flirt with, dear, are not often the men we marry.”
Meanwhile, Dr. Little had descended the stairs, looking as serious as any middle aged demi-god who had been snubbed by a school-girl. He crossed the hall to Parker Steel’s consulting-room, took out a bottle containing tabloids of perchloride of mercury from the cabinet, dissolved two in the basin fixed in one corner of the room, and sedulously and carefully disinfected his hands.
“How the devil—!”
This meditative exclamation appeared to limit the gentleman’s reflections for the moment. He stood with bent shoulders, staring at his hands soaking in the rose-tinted water, like some mediæval wiseacre striving to foresee the future in a pot of ink.
CHAPTER XXXVI
The glitter of the sea visible between the foliage of flowering-shrubs seemed to add a touch of vivacity to the June somnolence that hung like a summer mist over the south-coast town. Parker Steel, half lying in a basket-chair under a red May-tree in the hotel garden, betrayed his sympathy with the poetical paraphernalia of life by reading through a list of investments recommended by his brokers. A satisfactory breakfast followed by the contemplation of a satisfactory banking account begets peace in the heart of man.
It was about ten o’clock, and a few enthusiasts were already quarrelling over croquet, when the hotel “buttons” came out with a telegram on a tray.
“No. 25, Dr. Steel?”
“Here.”
“Any reply, sir?”
The boy waited with the tray held over that portion of his figure where his morning meal reposed, while Parker Steel tore open the envelope and read the message.
“No answer.”
“Right, sir.”
“Wait; tell them at the office to get my bill made up. I have to leave after lunch.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And bring me a time-table, and a whiskey and soda.”
Parker Steel glanced at his watch, thrust the investment list into the breast-pocket of his coat, and lay back again in his chair with the telegram across his knee. Faces vary much in their expression when the mind behind the face labors with some thought that fills the whole consciousness for the moment. The smooth indolence had melted from the physician’s features. His face had sharpened as faces sharpen in bitter weather, for a man who is a coward betrays his cowardice even when he thinks.
A much-grieved croquet-player in a blue-and-white check dress was confiding her criticisms to a very sympathetic gentleman in one corner of the lawn.
“It is such a pity that Mrs. Sallow cheats so abominably. I hate playing with mean people. Every other stroke is a spoon, and she is always walking over her ball, and shifting it with her skirt when it is wired.”
“People give their characters away in games.”
“It is so contemptible. I can’t understand any self-respecting person cheating.”
The continuous click of the balls appeared to irritate Parker Steel, as he sat huddled up in his chair with the telegram on his knee. He found himself listening—without curiosity—to the young lady in the blue-and-white whose complaints suggested that the immoral Mrs. Sallow was the cleverer player of the two. Dishonesty is only dishonest, to many people, when it comes within the cognizance of the law, and how thoroughly symbolical those four balls were of the opportunities mortals manipulate in life, Parker Steel might have realized had not his mind been clogged with other things.
The boy returned with a time-table and the whiskey and soda on a tray.
“A fast train leaves at 2.30, sir.”
“Thanks; get me a table. You can keep the change.”
“Much obliged, sir,” and he touched a carefully watered forelock; “will you drive, sir, or walk?”
“Order me a cab.”
“Right, sir.”
And the boy noticed, as he turned away, that the hand shook that reached for the glass, and that some of the stuff was spilled before it came to the man’s lips.
No one met Parker Steel at Roxton station that June evening. A porter piled his luggage on a cab, for the physician’s own carriage was not forthcoming. A sense of isolation and neglect took hold upon him as he drove through the sleepy streets of the old town. Loneliness is never comforting to a man who is cursed with an irrepressible conscience, and his own restless imaginings rose like a cold fog into the June air. Parker Steel shivered as he had often shivered when driving through moonlit mists to answer a midnight message. The very elms about St. Antonia’s spire had a shadowy strangeness for him, a gloom that gave nothing of the glow of a return home.
Parker Steel stood in his own dining-room, waiting and listening, as though he were in a stranger’s house. Symons, the starched servant, had opened the door to him without a smile; his luggage had been carried up-stairs. He had heard voices, faint, distant voices, that had tantalized him with words that he could not understand. He had been ready to ask the woman Symons a dozen questions, but had faltered from a self-conscious fear of betraying his own thoughts. The house seemed full of some indefinable dread as the dusk deepened towards night.
A door opened above. He heard footsteps descending the stairs, so slowly in the silence of the darkening house, that the sound reminded the man of the slow drip of water into a well. Parker Steel found himself counting them as they descended towards the hall. If it was Betty, how was he to construe the message of the morning? The suffering of suspense drove him to action. He turned sharply, crossed the room, and, opening the door, looked out into the hall.
“Hallo, dear, is it you?”
She was in white, and her foot was on the last step of the stairs.
“I am glad that you have come, Parker.”
“I had your wire early. I imagined—”
“That I was ill?”
“Yes, that you were ill.”
She halted with one hand on the carved foot-post of the balustrading. The dusk of the hall showed nothing but a white figure and a gray oval to mark her face. Some mysterious psychic force seemed to hold husband and wife apart. Their two personalities had become incompatible through some subtle ferment of distrust.
“Parker!”
He made a step forward.
“No, I want you to go into that room and light the gas.”
The insistent note in her voice repulsed him. His walk approached a self-conscious shuffle as he turned and re-entered the darkening room. Betty heard him groping for the matches. A sudden glare of light followed the sharp purr of a flaring match. She drew a deep and sighing breath, pressed her hands to her breast, and entered the room.
Parker Steel was drawing the blinds. His wife closed the door, and waited for him to turn.
“When I had your wire, dear—”
“Yes.”
“I wondered what I should find—here. The wording—Good Heavens, Betty—”
She stood back from him and leaned against the sideboard, the glare from the gas falling full upon her face. It was red, repulsive, tinged with an ooze that had hardened here and there into yellow scabs.
“You see, Parker, why I sent for you.”
He looked for the moment like a man shocked into immobility by a sudden storm of wind and sleet beating on his face.
“When did this appear?”
He moved towards her, the shallow gleam of sympathy in his eyes darkened by something more terrible than mere fear. Betty stood her ground. It was the man who betrayed the incoherency of panic.
“Come, tell me.”
His eyes were fixed upon her face, upon her mouth.
“It is I, Parker, who want to know—”
“Yes, yes, of course, dear, I can understand. You should have sent for me sooner.”
Intuition is a gift of the gods to women, a power—almost unholy in its brilliant reading of the hearts of others. Betty’s eyes were searching her husband’s face as though it were some delicately finished miniature in which every piece of shading had significance. Her breath came and went more deeply than when life had a normal flow. For all else she was cold, very quiet, the mistress even of her own repulsive face.
“I want you to tell me, Parker—”
She saw the muscles about his mouth quiver.
“Have you seen any one?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Dr. Little, and Dr. Brimley.”
“Well? What—?”
“They would tell me nothing.”
“Nothing?”
She saw him breathe out deeply like a man who has seen a child escape the wheels of a heavy cart.
“They gave me mere phrases, Parker. A woman can tell when men are hiding the truth.”
“What had they to hide, dear? Come closer—here—to the light.”
She did not stir.
“I must know, Parker.”
“Yes, of course.”
“The whole truth. Listen—I happened to go yesterday morning into your consulting-room. Dr. Little had been reading; he had left the book open—at a certain page. You know, Parker, that many men only read the big text-books when they are puzzled by a particular case.”
Steel’s face seemed nothing but a gray and frightened mask to her.
“Betty, you are imagining things—”
“Well, tell me the truth.”
“A form of eczema.”
“Parker!”
Her voice had the ring of iron in it.
“That was not the word I read.”
“Good God, Betty!”
“It was this.”
She spoke the word without flinching, with a distinctness that had that cold and terrible conciseness that science loves. Her eyes did not leave her husband’s face. Even as he answered her, hotly, haltingly, she knew him to be a liar.
“Impossible! You are seizing on a mad coincidence, a mere ridiculous conclusion. I can swear—”
“Yes, swear—”
“That it is nothing, nothing of what you have said.”
His eyes had the furtive fierceness of eyes searching her soul for unbelief.
“Come, Betty, wife—”
She remained unmoved.
“What? You think that I—”
“No, don’t touch me. I don’t believe that you have told me the truth.”
“Not believe—that I—!”
“No, God help me, I cannot!”
Her body had hardly changed the pose that it had taken from the first moment. It was as though it had stiffened with the slow, pitiless hardening of her heart. Parker Steel looked at her like the moral coward that he was, too crushed by his own keen consciousness of shame to pretend to the courage that he could not boast.
“Betty, am I—?”
She flung aside from him with an indescribable gesture of passionate repulsion.
“Don’t. I can’t look at you, or be looked at. Madge is waiting for me. They will bring you your dinner. Good-night.”
She moved towards the door.
“Betty—”
He would have hindered her, but the manhood in him had neither the power nor the pride. She swept out and left him. He heard the sound of sobbing as she climbed the stairs.
“Good God—!”
Parker Steel stood listening, staring at the door, a man who could neither think nor act.
CHAPTER XXXVII
On two successive days the society of loafers that lounged outside the gates of Roxton station for the ostensible purpose of carrying hand-bags and parcels, had noticed Major Murray’s red-wheeled dog-cart meet the afternoon express from town. The society of luggage loafers boasted a membership of four. It was not an energetic brotherhood, and had put up a living protest against the unseemly scurry and bustle of twentieth-century methods. The society’s loafing ground ran along the white fence that closed in the “goods” yard, a fence that carried, from four distinct patches of discoloration, the marks left by the brothers’ bodies in their postures of dignified and independent ease.
All the comings and goings of Roxton seemed known to these four gentlemen, whose eyes were ever on the alert, though their hands remained in their trousers-pockets. A fly basking on the sidewalk within six feet would be seen and dislodged by a brisk discharge of saliva from between one of the member’s lips. Like Diogenes, they “had reduced impertinence to a fine art”; and the major portion of the society’s funds was patriotically disbursed to swell the state’s revenue on beer.
“Psst—’Ere ’e is ag’in.”
“’oo?”
A mouth was wiped by the back of a hand.
“Murray’s man.”
“Same un?”
“Yas. Little feller with the twirly mustache. What d’yer guess ’e be, Jack?”
“Looks as though ’e might have come t’ wind the clocks.”
“You bet! Ter do with the babies, I’ve ’eard.”
“Ah, ’ow was that?”
“Murray’s man, ’e told me, t’other evening. This little feller be what they call a ‘Lonnan Special.’ Dunno what edition.”
Three pairs of eyes, one member was absent on duty at the pub, followed Major Murray’s dog-cart with an all-engrossing stare as its red wheels whirled by in the June sunshine.
“Thought Steel ’ad the managin’ of all Murray’s badgers.”
“So ’e ’as. Didn’t yer see ’im come back by the 7.50 t’other day?”
“I did.”
“An’ the other feller who’s bin wearin’ Steel’s breeches all the month—went off by the 4.49.”
“’E did.”
“Saucy lookin’ chap.”
“Give me Jim Murchison and blow the liquor. ’E tells you what’s what, and no mistake. Said I sh’ld drink meself to death—and so I shall.”
“What, ’ad the roups again, Frank?”
“Yes, all along with my old liver. Chucks it out of me every marnin’, reg’lar as clock-work.”
The observations of the brotherhood were reliable as far as the identity of the gentleman in Major Murray’s dog-cart was concerned. He was named Dr. Peterson, and his caliber may be appreciated by the fact that he received a check for twenty-five guineas when he travelled forty miles to and fro from his house in Mayfair. Moreover, he had left his card the preceding day on Dr. Parker Steel, with a note urging that an interview between them was urgent and inevitable. Parker Steel’s face had betrayed exceeding discomfort and alarm on reading the name on the piece of paste-board that Dr. Peterson had left on the general practitioner’s hall table.
It was about four o’clock on the afternoon of Thursday when Major Murray’s dog-cart clattered over the cobbles of St. Antonia’s Square, and deposited a very spruce little man in a well-cut frock-coat, and a blemishless tall hat at Parker Steel’s door.
The imperturbable Symons recognized him as the caller of yesterday.
“Dr. Steel’s out, sir.”
“Out?”
“Very sorry, sir—”
“You gave him my card and note?”
“Certainly, sir. Will you wait? Dr. Steel should be back at any minute.”
Dr. Peterson glanced at his watch, and stepped like a dapper little bantam into the hall. His reddish hair was plastered from a broad pathway in the middle, so as to conceal the premature tendency to baldness that his pate betrayed. Dr. Peterson’s figure boasted a juvenile waist; his face, smooth and very sleek, almost suggested the craft of the beauty specialist. A red-and-green bandanna handkerchief protruded from his breast coat-pocket, an æsthetic patch of color harmonizing with his sage-green tie. He wore black-and-white check trousers, patent-leather boots, and a tuberose in his button-hole. Moreover, his person smelled fragrantly of scent.
Dr. Peterson deposited his hat and gloves on the hall table.
“I can spare half an hour. My train goes at five. It is highly important that I should see Dr. Steel.”
“I will tell him, sir, the minute he returns,” and she showed Dr. Peterson into the drawing-room.
A bedroom bell rang as Symons was descending the stairs to the kitchen. She turned with a “Drat the thing!” and dawdled heavenward to her mistress’s room.
“Who has called, Symons?”
“Dr. Peterson, ma’am.”
“From Major Murray’s?”
“Yes, ma’am; wants to see the master, most particular.”
“Dr. Steel’s not in?”
“No, ma’am, but he left word that he would be at home about four.”
“Thanks, Symons, you can go.”
The servant’s ill-conditioned stare was bitterness to a woman of Betty’s pride and penetration. The finer touches of courtesy, the more delicate instincts, are rarely developed in the lower classes. Even the starched Symons was utterly cowlike in her manners. Betty felt her face sore under the servant’s eyes.
A big red book lay open upon the dressing-table amid Betty Steel’s crowd of silver knick-knacks. It was theMedical Directory, and lay open at the London list, and at the letter P. Dr. Peterson’s name headed the left-hand page, as staff-physician to sundry hospitals and charitable institutions, and as a holder of medals, diplomas, and degrees galore. A cursory glance at the titles of his contributions to medical literature would have marked him out as one of the leading authorities on diseases of the skin.
Betty Steel looked in her pier-glass, fluffed out her hair a little, and fastening the scarf of her green tea-gown, crossed the landing towards the stairs. She had that steady and almost staring expression of the eyes that betrays a purpose suddenly but seriously matured. She had not spoken with her husband since their meeting on the night of his return.
“Dr. Peterson, I believe?”
The specialist had been reviewing the photographs on the mantel-piece, and had displayed his good taste by electing a handsome cousin of Betty’s as his ideal for the moment. He set the silver frame down rather hurriedly, and turned at the sound of the door opening, a dapper, diplomatic, yet rather finicking figure, the figure more of a little man about town than of a brilliant and prosperous London consultant.
“Mrs. Steel—?”
He had glanced up with a slight puckering of the brows into Betty’s face.
“Yes. I am sorry my husband is out. I have taken the opportunity, Dr. Peterson, of consulting you—”
She moved towards the window, graceful, well poised, and unembarrassed. The specialist stood aside, his face a sympathetic blank, a birdlike and inquisitive alertness visible in his eyes.
“You have noticed my face, Dr. Peterson?”
She stood before him unflinchingly, a woman of distinction and of charm of manner despite her great disfigurement. The fingers of Dr. Peterson’s right hand were fidgeting with his watch-chain. It was wholly improper for a London consultant to appear embarrassed.
“You wish to consult me?”
“Yes.”
He hesitated, elevated his eyebrows, and then met her with a conciliatory smile.
“I do not know, Mrs. Steel, whether—”
She understood his meaning and the significance of his hesitation.
“My husband? Yes—Your opinion will be of interest to him. Let us be frank.”
Dr. Peterson advanced one patent-leather boot, put the forefinger of his right hand under Betty’s chin, and turned her face towards the light. She could see that he was profoundly interested despite his air of shallow smartness. Also that he was somewhat perplexed by the responsibility she had thrust upon him.
“Hum! How long have you noticed the swelling on the lip?”
“Five weeks or more, perhaps longer.”
“The throat?”
She opened her mouth wide. Dr. Peterson peered into it and frowned.
“The rash has been present some days?”
“Yes.”
“You are paler than usual?”
“I think so.”
“Feverish?”
“A little.”
“Of course, Dr. Steel has seen all this?”
“Yes.”
“Hum!”
He was embarrassed, troubled, and betrayed the feeling in an increased fussiness and polite magniloquence of manner.
“You must pardon me, Mrs. Steel.”
“I want you to be quite frank with me. I am ready to answer any questions. You may think my attitude unusual—”
“Not at all—not at all,” and he flicked his handkerchief from his pocket and began to polish a lens in a tortoise-shell setting.
“I must confess, Dr. Peterson, that I have been subjected to a great deal of worry and—and doubt. My husband only returned yesterday. Of course, you know about that. Dr. Little sent for you to see Major Murray’s wife, I believe.”
Dr. Peterson still flourished his handkerchief.
“Has Dr. Steel expressed any opinion to you?”
“About this?”
“Yes.”
“He told me that it was a form of eczema.”
The specialist threw a sharp, penetrating look at her face.
“That was your husband’s diagnosis?”
“I believe it to be incorrect.”
“Indeed!”
“And that he knows that he has not told me the truth.”
Both heard the rattle of a latch-key in the lock of the front door, and the sound of footsteps in the hall. Symons could be heard hurrying up the stairs from the kitchen. She spoke to some one in the hall, a tired and toneless voice answering her in curt monosyllables. It was Parker Steel.
Dr. Peterson walked up the room and back again to the window, glancing rather nervously at the clock as he passed. His attitude was that of a man who has been entangled in the meshes of a very delicate dilemma, and he was waiting to see how Betty Steel’s mood shaped. She was standing with one hand resting on the back of a chair, as though steadying herself for the inevitable crisis.
“Ah, good-day; I must apologize—Betty!”
He had entered with an elaborate flourish intended to suggest the brisk candor of a man much hurried in the public service. His wife’s figure, outlined against the window, brought him to a dead halt on the threshold. The blood seemed to recede from his face in an instant. The alert, confident manner became a tense effort towards naturalness and self-control.
“You will excuse us, Betty. Dr. Peterson and I have matters to discuss.”
He held the door open for her, but she did not budge.
“I am consulting Dr. Peterson, Parker.”
Her husband’s face seemed to grow thin and haggard, with the lights and shadows of the hall for a checkered background. The specialist stood jerking his watch-chain up and down.
“I think,” he began—
Betty turned to him with the air of a mistress of a salon.
“This is a family affair, Dr. Peterson, is it not? There are no secrets that a husband and wife cannot share. I may tell my husband what I believe your opinion to be?”
“My opinion, madam!”
His voice betrayed the rising impatience of a man irritated by finding his discretion taxed beyond its strength. The grim touch of the tragic element banished the veneer of formalism from his face. To pose such a man as Dr. Peterson with a problem in ethics, engendered anger and impatience.
“I am not aware that I have pledged myself to any expression of opinion.”
“No,” and she smiled; “but I can ask you a blunt question, to which ‘yes’ or ‘no’ will be inevitable.”
The specialist met her eyes, and realized that the subtlety of a woman may make a man’s prudence seem ridiculous. He was a rapid thinker, and the complexities of the situation began to shape themselves in his mind. Betty Steel was not a woman whom he would care to hinder with a lie.
“You put me in a most embarrassing position—”
“Believe me, no.”
“With regard to another case I have some authority to speak.”
“Consider my case within your jurisdiction.”
“Betty:” Her husband’s face was turned to hers in miserable reproof. “Remember, we are something to each other. I cannot bear—”
He faltered as he read the unalterable purpose in her eyes. It is the nature of some women to appear incapable of pity when their self-love has received a poignant shock.
“Then, Parker, you admit—”
“For God’s sake, Betty, let me have five minutes’ privacy—”
She looked at him calmly, as though considering his inmost thoughts.
“I think Dr. Peterson can deal with you more forcibly than I can. It is sufficient that we understand each other.”
“Have you no consideration for my self-respect?”
“It is my self-respect that accuses you in this.”
And she turned and left the two men together.