"When you are qualified," he said at last, "you only mean to attend your own sex?"
"Oh, of course," said Mona earnestly.
He seemed relieved.
"That was why my wife made me angry by suggesting, even in play, that you should prescribe for me. You women are—with or without conscious sacrifice—wading through seas of blood to right a terrible evil that has hitherto been an inevitable one. If you deliberately and gratuitously repeat that evil by extending your services to men, the sacrifice has all been for nothing, and less than nothing."
He spoke with his old vehemence, and then relapsed into silence.
His next remark sounded curiously irrelevant.
"How long do you remain here?"
"In London? I don't quite know. I am going to visit a cousin in ten days or so."
Sir Douglas took advantage of a pause in the conversation between his wife and their visitor.
"Bruce," he said, "let me introduce you to my niece, Miss Maclean."