Doctor. I give you my word on it.
George. You’re not—you’re not making some mistake? I have been told—
Doctor [shrugging his shoulders] You have been told! You have been told! No doubt you know all the ins and outs of the law of property.
George. Yes, certainly; but I don’t see what connection—
Doctor. Instead of being taught that, it would have been much better if you had been told the nature of the disease from which you are suffering. Then, perhaps, you would have been sufficiently afraid to avoid contracting it.
George. But this woman was so—well, who could have thought such a thing of her? I didn’t take a woman off the streets, you know. She lives in the Rue de Berne—not exactly a low part of the town, is it?
Doctor. The part of the town has nothing to do with it. This disease differs from many others; it has no preference for the unfortunate.
George. But this woman lives almost straight. One of my chums has a mistress who’s a married woman. Well, it was a friend of hers. Her mother—she lives with her mother—was abroad at the time. At first she wouldn’t listen to me; then, finally, after I had spent a whole half-hour persuading her I had to promise her a ring like one of her friend’s before she would give way. She even made me take off my boots before going upstairs so that the porter mightn’t hear.
Doctor. Well; if you had been taught, you would have known that these circumstances are no guarantee.
George. That’s true; we ought to be taught.