"Your charwoman? Ah, yes. I did happen to see her. Yes."
"Ah! Then she is unwell. Nothing serious, I hope?"
"No, no!" said the doctor, his voice rather higher than usual. "She'll be all right to-morrow. A mere nothing. An excellent constitution, I should imagine."
A strictly formal reply, if very courteous. Probably nobody in Clerkenwell, except perhaps his man Joe, knew how Dr. Raste talked and looked when he was not talking and looking professionally. Dr. Raste would sometimes say with a dry, brief laugh, "we medicoes," thereby proclaiming a caste, an order, a clan, separated by awful, invisible, impregnable barriers from the common remainder of mankind; and he never stepped beyond the barriers into humanity. In his case the secret life of the brain was indeed secret, and the mask of the face, tongue and demeanour made an everlasting privacy. He cleared his throat.
"Yes, yes.... By the way, I've been reading that Shakspere. Very fine, very fine. I shall read it all one of these days. Good morning." He raised his hat again and departed.
"I shall go in and see her, poor thing!" said Mrs. Arb with compassion.
"Shall you?"
"Well, I'm here. I think it would be nice if I did, don't you?"
"Oh, yes," Mr. Earlforward admiringly agreed.