"No, I thank you."
She started to Dr. Green's office on a third morning. As she was about to leave her door she saw the doctor entering the gate.
"I got back on the nine o'clock train," he explained. "This morning Virginia came early—early, if you please—to tell me that you have been twice to my office. She suspects all sorts of afflictions. Surely you are not ill!"
Thomasina led the way into her parlor and sat down upon her throne-like chair. Her pale face wore both a judicial and an embarrassed air.
"You should have a wife, Dr. Green. Virginia should be taken in hand, dealt with, commanded, bullied."
"I agree with you. You are thinking of my office. I suppose when I'm away, Virginia's 'on the town' as she says."
"But a wife could make a fine girl of Virginia."
Dr. Green looked at Thomasina with faint astonishment. It was not like her to assume so intimate and bantering an air.
"I hope there is nothing serious the matter. What are your symptoms? Do you not think it is the intense heat that has affected you?"
"The heat never troubles me. It is a patient of yours who worries me. I mean Mrs. Lister."