The two men looked at each other. Upon the one face disappointment had laid her indelible touch; upon the other glowed the light of hope and faith.
"Before we settle down to our papers"—the surgeon indicated an enormous pile of magazines and journals—"let me remind you that we spun you for the Service because you cannot run, with impunity, to catch trains—or, indeed, anything else."
He picked up a review as he spoke and opened it. Mark eyed him vacantly, reflecting that he had run to catch Betty, not the train. And he had spoken of this meeting as coincidence. Was it coincidence? His heart began to thump once more. When he spoke his voice was hoarse and quavering.
"Thank you. I suppose just now you had time to make a rough-and-ready sort of examination?" The surgeon nodded. "Is—is there anything organically wrong with my heart?"
"Um. It is organically weak—you knew as much before, but you may live to be sixty if you take care of yourself—which you won't do."
"If others were dependent on me I would take care of myself."
"Oh!" Barger frowned. "You are married—got a family—eh?"
"I have been thinking lately of—of marrying."
The surgeon's face was impassive. Mark looked out of the window at the pleasant fields of Surrey, through which the train was running swiftly and smoothly. Was Fate bearing him as swiftly and inexorably out of the paradise wherein he, poor fool, had already lived in anticipation many years?
"I infer from your silence," he said, "that if you gave a professional opinion it would be against marriage—for me?"