"She is something better. She loves a dog because it is a dog, a worm because it is a worm. Science must stand cap in hand before such genuine inborn love of Nature as hers."
Again there was a pause before the Sahib answered. Then he roused himself suddenly.
"It seems to me, Miss Maclean, that you are shirking your part of the bargain. I have confided to you how it is I come to be here. It is your innings now."
Mona sighed.
"When I last saw you, you were a burning and shining medical light. Wherefore the bushel?"
"That is right. Strike hard at the root of my amour propre. It is good for me, though I wince. I am here, Sahib, mainly because I failed twice in my Intermediate Medicine examination."
Another of the Sahib's characteristic pauses.
"How on earth did you contrive to do it?" he asked at last. "When one sees the duffers of men that pass——"
The colour on Mona's cheek deepened. "I don't think a very large proportion of duffers pass the London University medical examinations," she said. "Of course one makes excuses for one's self. One began hospital work too soon; one's knowledge was on a plane altogether above the level of the examination papers, &c. It is only in moments of rare and exceptional honesty that one says, as I say to you now, 'I failed because I was a duffer, and did not know my work.'"
"Nay, you don't catch me with chaff. That is not the truth, and you don't think it is. I don't call that honesty!"