"That is quite true up to a certain point. I suppose you have friends that you can go to?"
"Yes. My aunt wants me to go to Bournemouth with her," Mona admitted unwillingly.
"And is she a congenial companion?"
"Thoroughly; but I should mope myself to death."
"Not if you follow my advice. Live on the cliffs the whole day long, read what will rest you, and take a tonic that will make you eat in spite of yourself."
She asked a few more questions, and then consulted Mona very frankly about the ingredients of her prescription. Dr Bateson did not at all believe in making a mystery of her art, nor in drawing a hard-and-fast line between students and doctors.
"Thank you very much indeed," Mona said, rising and tendering her fee.
"Nonsense! we are none of us cannibals, as your great Scotch Æsculapius says. I don't take fees from students and nurses."
"But I am not studying in order to support myself."
"I can't help that. Now I wonder if you mean to take my advice as well as my tonic?" She asked the question quite dispassionately, as if it only interested her in an abstract way.