“I’m sure you operate wonderfully.”
Perhaps he hated compliments as much as photographs. He said with professional curtness:
“Ah! you have worked in the theatre at Wilverley?”
“No. But I acted as ‘special’ for three weeks—dressings, and all that. Miss Chandos told me you were in France. But I knew, of course, that just before the war you were Dr. Pawley’s partner.”
Giving the rubber solution time to dry, he explained curtly, with an air as if his concerns couldn’t possibly interest others, that he had been invalided home and was taking up his old work.
“Do you like country practice?”
He replied evasively: “I like work, Miss Tiddle, and there is plenty of it here.”
“Too much,” observed Tiddy tranquilly.
“Yes; too much. A month of drought has played the deuce. Now comes the tug.”
“You are speaking of Upworthy?”