Lady Seagrave objected to tobacco, but she did not mind a person taking snuff in her presence. She was of that day.
“You think because there is influenza in the house I must have it. I haven’t; I expect it’s a little cold. However, I haven’t sent for you to tinker over my ears, but to see a patient. I have a guest who is down with influenza—a Mr Boxall, a Member of Parliament—but he refuses to see a doctor.”
“Then,” said O’Flaherty, “he must have more sense in him than the ordinary Members of Parliament.”
“I know—it’s very foolish of him, but he is not going to pursue his foolishness under my roof. He must be seen.”
O’Flaherty nodded his head.
“You had better go and see him now,” said her ladyship, “and not waste any more of your time on me. If he is very bad you can tell James, and he will let me know, and you’d better call again to-morrow. Good-day.”
She pulled a big bell-rope beside her bed to summon James, who was lingering in the passage, and the doctor with an old-fashioned bow to his patient and a grin on his lips left the room.
“The man’s a fool,” murmured the old lady to herself, as she settled down in her bed, “but he’s respectful—the sort of country doctor I remember when doctors called themselves apothecaries and knew their proper places.”
“This room, sir,” said James. He knocked at the door next to Lady Seagrave’s.
“Come in,” said a woman’s voice, and O’Flaherty found himself in the presence of a pretty girl, fully dressed, seated in a basket armchair and busily engaged in tearing up letters. A dressing-bag half stuffed with things stood on a chair.