She moistened her colorless lips before she spoke.
"And where is the money coming from to do all this?"
She had touched the weak spot in his attack, but he replied with assurance.
"It will be ready when needed."
"This is persecution—a plot to ruin me on the trumped-up charges of irresponsible people."
The Dago Duke's keen ear detected the faint note of uncertainty and agitation beneath the defiance of her tone.
"These things are true—and more," he returned unemotionally. "But consider, even if you beat us at every turn through personal influence, you will pay dearly for your victories in money, in peace, in reputation. These things will leave a stigma which will outlast you. It will arouse suspicion of your ability and skill among your private patients who now trust you. You'll have to fight every inch of the road to retain your ground, or any part of it, against the new and abler physicians who must come with the growth of the country. You'll not be wanted by your best friends when it comes to a case of life and death. You'll become only a kind of licensed midwife rushing about from one accouchement to another, and, even for this, you must finesse and intrigue in the manner which has made the incompetents of your sex in medicine the bête noir of the profession."
The sneering smile she had forced faded as he talked. It was like the deliberate voice of Prophecy, drawing pictures which she had seen in waking nightmares that she called the "blues" and was wont to drive away with a drink or a social call outside.
She raised her chin from her chest where it had sunk, and summoned her courage.
"You have taken a great deal of trouble to inform yourself upon the subject of the medical profession and my unfitness for it."