“Your reason, Dr. Grey?”
“Is one whose utterance would pain you, consequently I trust you will pardon me for withholding it.”
“At my own peril, I demand it.”
“The motive which prompts your offer precludes the possibility of my acceptance.”
“How dare you sit in judgment on my motives? You who prate and homilize of charity! charity! and who quote the ‘golden rule’ solely for the edification and guidance of those around you. Example is more potent than precept, and we are creatures of imitation. Suppose I should question the disinterestedness of your motives in allowing one patient to monopolize your attention to the detriment of the remainder? Of course you would be shocked and think me presumptuous, for one’s sins and follies often play hide and seek, and sometimes we insult our own pet fault when we find it housed in some other piece of flesh.”
“Good night, Salome. I shall endeavor to forget all this, since I am too sincerely your friend to desire to set your hasty words in the storehouse of memory.”
He looked down pityingly, sorrowfully, into her angry imperious eyes, and sudden shame smote her, making her cheeks glow and tingle as if from the stroke of an open hand.
“Dr. Grey, wait one moment! Let me say something, that will show,—that will—”
“Only make matters worse. No, Salome, I have little time for trifling, still less for recrimination, none at all for dissimulation; and, in your present mood, the least we can say will prove the most powerful for good.”