She answered his question charmingly:
“If you still want to work with me.”
“I do—I do. But how to go to work bothers me. You see, I am not—I fear I never can be—diplomatic.”
All traces of the doctor had vanished. He stood before her, clothed with an endearing humility and humanity. Cicely might, at her age, be deemed incapable of thus summing up a passing phase in a man who attracted her, but she grasped the essential fact: he loathed to inflict pain on others. His mission in life was obviously to alleviate suffering. Her first thought was: “How wisely he has chosen his profession!” She said softly:
“I think I understand and sympathise. But my Mother——?”
She broke off abruptly, unable, perhaps unwilling, to give words to sensibilities still inarticulate. Very eagerly he took up the broken sentence.
“But I understand too. And just because she is your mother,” he placed, unconsciously, the slightest emphasis on the personal pronoun, “I feel so much the more bothered.”
“Please don’t bother too much!”
She held out her hand and went her way.