“Look here,” said Dr. Paull, throwing himself back in his chair. “This is a fashionable, selfish woman, who has really nothing the matter with her. If I go, it is merely truckling to her position and wealth.”
“Has she consulted you before, then?” said the boy, seriously.
He was naturally serious, and in the most minor matters, which had any reference to his father, he was preternaturally so.
“No, I have not seen her professionally, exactly,” admitted Hugh.
“You once told me, father, that no man, however gifted in diagnosis, should pronounce upon a patient without making an—what was the word?—an exhaustive examination.”
“Does that mean I ought to go?”
“Why not?”
Hugh looked into the earnest blue eyes which, despite the lad’s years, had still an almost infantine expression.
“Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings one often hears the truth,” he thought.
“I suppose I must go, then,” he said, “although it is most inconvenient,” and abruptly rising he went into the hall, spoke to the man, and returned pledged to see the princess.