“No, I didn’t. But I know her now, don’t I?”
Gabriel was silent. He had seen a great many doctors too, before the Christian Scientists had broken their influence, but such a one as this was new to him. Margaret was so sacred and special to him that he did not know what to think. But Peter gave him little time for thinking. He fixed a gloomy eye upon him and said:
“A man’s a man, you know, although he’s nothing but a country practitioner.” Gabriel was acutely annoyed, a little shocked, most supremely uncomfortable.
“But ought you to go on attending her?” he got out.
“I shan’t do her any harm, shall I, because I am madly in love with her, because I could kiss the ground she walks on, because I’d give my life for hers any day?” Gabriel’s face might have been carved. “She treats me like a dog....”
Gabriel made a gesture of dissent, Margaret could not treat any one like a dog.
“Oh, yes, she does, she says I’m not fit to wipe the mud off your shoes....”
Then Margaret knew. He was a little stunned and taken by surprise to think Margaret knew her doctor was in love with her, knew and had kept him in attendance. But of course she was right, everything she did was right. She had not taken the matter seriously.
“I suppose I’d better go.” Peter dropped his feet to the ground, rose slowly. “She won’t see me again if she says she won’t. She’s got her bromide. You might ring me up in the morning and tell me how she is, if she wants me to come round. That’s not too much to ask, is it?” he said savagely.
“Not at all,” Gabriel answered coldly. “I should of course do anything she wished.” Peter paused a moment at the door.