“Yes, but before the waiters and people! See how they are staring at us already.”
“We will have another go in at the beef, and then adjourn to the garden for your narrative.”
“No: as much garden as you like, but no more beef. I have eaten one sirloin, I reckon. Will you give me one cup of black tea without sugar or milk?”
Vizard gave the order.
She seemed to think some explanation necessary, though he did not.
“One cup of tea agrees with my brain and nerves,” said she. “It steadies them. That is a matter of individual experience. I should not prescribe it to others any the more for that.”
Vizard sat wondering at the girl. He said to himself, “What is she? A lusus naturoe?”
When the tea came, and she had sipped a little, she perked up wonderfully. Said she, “Oh, the magic effect of food eaten judiciously! Now I am a lioness, and do not fear the future. Yes; I will tell you my story—and, if you think you are going to hear a love-story, you will be nicely caught—ha-ha! No, sir;” said she, with rising fervor and heightened color, “you will hear a story the public is deeply interested in and does not know it; ay, a story that will certainly be referred to with wonder and shame, whenever civilization shall become a reality, and law cease to be a tool of injustice and monopoly.” She paused a moment; then said a little doggedly, as one used to encounter prejudice, “I am a medical student; a would-be doctor.”
“Ah!”
“And so well qualified by genuine gifts, by study from my infancy, by zeal, quick senses, and cultivated judgment, that, were all the leading London physicians examined to-morrow by qualified persons at the same board as myself, most of those wealthy practitioners—not all, mind you—would cut an indifferent figure in modern science compared with me, whom you have had to rescue from starvation—because I am a woman.”