"Your Majesty is too intelligent not to know that a man of medicine only judges the material state: he is not a wizard to sound at the first glance the mind of man."
"Do you mean to imply that at the second, or third time, you could not merely tell me my bodily ail but a mental one?"
"Possibly," returned Gilbert coldly.
She darted at him a withering look while he was simply staring at her with desperate fixedness. Vanquished, she tried to wrench herself away from what was alarming while fascinating, and she upset a stand so that a chocolate cup was smashed on the floor. He saw it fall and the cup shiver, but did not budge. The color flew to her brow, to which she carried her chilly hand; but she dared not direct her eyes again on the magnetizer.
"Under what master did you study?" she inquired, using a scornful tone more painful than insolence.
"I cannot answer without wounding your Majesty."
The Queen felt that he gave her an advantage and she leaped in at the opening like a lioness on a prey.
"Wound me?" she almost screamed. "I vow that you mistake. Dr. Gilbert, you have not studied the French language in as good sources as medicine, I fear. Members of my class are not wounded by inferiors, only tired."
"Excuse me, madam," he returned, "I forgot I was called in to a patient. You are about to stifle with excitement and I shall call your women to put you to bed."
She walked up and down the room, infuriated at being treated like a great child, and, turning, said: