"Feejee Islanders are all very well—I dare say they'll learn by-and-by quite to shine in society, don't you know?—Now they've left off eating everybody. And as for Madagascar, and Zulu-Land, and that other place—what is the name?—Alaska—I should be as glad as anything, if they could just have all the beads and blankets they want, poor dear things! We have our working party once a fortnight, you know—what Mabel calls 'The Timbuctoo Thimble'—and then, of course, we think about those sort of creatures. At least, we try to, I'm sure, though we do sometimes talk about Mrs. Villiers' last new bonnet, don't you know?"
"And we read reports about them—quite properly! Because my husband doesn't think we ought to read a story. I think it might make folks work a little faster; but you know you never can get a man to see what he doesn't see, when he won't see it!—And he says it isn't suitable. And to be sure we're not working for fictitious savages! But then everybody yawns, and everybody else catches it and yawns too; and nobody can do a nice hem when they're yawning, so we have to stop reading and do a little talk instead . . . Still, you know, all that can't be like home affairs!"
"And though I'm not so very desperately fond of Jean Trevelyan in a general way—She's got a shut-up sort of manner, you know, and all that—! And of course her father and my husband are on different lines. I don't know why they shouldn't be, either—" reflectively—"but I suppose it isn't in man-nature to think that anybody or another line can possibly be right. And so—don't you see?—That's how it is! But Jean really is a nice girl, I'm sure—and all these weeks I've been so awfully sorry for the poor dear! I haven't liked to go and bother her through the worst of the time—but now he's getting a little bit of a scrap better, I thought I would just ask you—privately, don't you know?—If I could be of any sort of use?"
Dr. Ingram's listening face relaxed slightly. Then this was not all pure chatter.
"Of course, Jean has her own friends," pursued Mrs. Kennedy, allowing no space for an answer. "Any number of them. There's Mrs. Trevelyan—only she has been shut-up for a month with influenza. And there's Mrs. Villiers—but I shouldn't think she knew hardly as much about nursing as my Dicky. She always looks as if she was meant to be draperied like a Greek statue, don't you know?—With her hands nicely arranged, so as to show off the wrists. That funny creature, Miss Moggridge, has been backwards and forwards every day, I'm told, but—What did you say? Oh, it doesn't matter what I say to you, Dr. Ingram! You're like Mabel! You never make mischief. And everybody thinks Miss Moggridge queer."
"I'm afraid—" said Dr. Ingram, looking at the clock.
"I can't endure the woman, for my part. She's got such a way of setting herself upon a turret, as if nobody else in the world ever had a kind thought. Every one's narrow, and bitter, and wicked, and disagreeable, except Miss Moggridge. And the way she abuses good people who don't think like her—! Well, of course they're narrow, poor dears—and how can they help it? I suppose they were made so; or at least they've grown into it. Some people are born wide, and some are born narrow. And I don't really see, for my part, that it's a bit prettier or more Christian, for the broad-minded folks to abuse the narrow because they're not broad, don't you know, than it is for the narrow to abuse the broad, because they're not narrow, don't you see? Of course, nobody ever calls themselves narrow. They only say, they're all right, and everybody else is wrong who doesn't think like them. And that's what Miss Moggridge does—so where's the difference? . . . But I didn't mean to get upon Miss Moggridge. I wanted to ask you about Mr. Trevelyan."
Dr. Ingram hated to be questioned about his patients. He immediately stood up.
"You're not going yet, you know," asserted Mrs. Kennedy, keeping her seat. "My mind's all in a scrummage, and I want putting straight. And I want to know first about Jean . . . Of course, it's horrid for her, because she had to do what brought on this illness. At least she thought she had to do it. Yes, of course I've heard all about that—everybody has heard it, and they all say it's just like Jean. Anybody else wouldn't have called him. I wouldn't—not for any mortal man living! Now do tell me—is Mr. Trevelyan going on well, and could I do anything?"
"You can call and ask Jean yourself. She is much over-taxed."