Mona flushed crimson, but fortunately he was not looking. This was indeed approaching dangerous ground. She was strongly inclined to think that the professor in question was one of "the potent, grave, and reverend signiors" in her sketch-book.
"It was so odd," continued Dudley. "All my life, while other men walked in shadow, I had seemed to see the light of the eternal, but in medicine I had missed it absolutely. Ah, well! one word will do for a thousand. I am afraid I wrote my 'Sorrows of Werther' once more, for the last time in this world let us hope, and then I began all over again to work for a London degree."
He stopped with an unpleasant sensation of self-consciousness. "And I wonder why I have inflicted all this on you," he said, a little coldly.
"I think it was a grand thing to do—to begin over again." said Mona. "You will make a magnificent doctor when you do take your degree, and none of those past years will be lost. You will be a famous professor yourself some day. How far have you got?"
"I passed the Matriculation almost immediately, and the Preliminary Scientific six months after. In July, I go in for my Intermediate, and two years later comes my Final. Once the Intermediate is over, a load will be taken off my mind. It is all grist that comes to one's mill after that, but it requires a little resolution to plod along side by side with mere schoolboys, as most of the students are."
"It must be an excellent thing for the schoolboys."
She was wishing with all her heart that she could tell him her story in return for his. Why had she made that absurd promise to Rachel? And what would Rachel think if she claimed permission to make an exception in Dr Dudley's favour? It was all too ridiculous, and when she began to think of it, she was inclined to wonder whether she really was the Mona Maclean who had studied medicine in London.
"Why, it is after five," said Dudley suddenly, looking at his watch.
Mona sprang to her feet, and then remembered with relief that, as Rachel was going out to tea, she need not be punctual.
"But I ought to have been in time to prevent her wearing the scarlet cap," she thought with a pang of self-reproach.