"Well, it must be a consolation to be taken seriously," she said, "and I do think sympathy is wonderfully cheering. Are all doctors as sympathetic as you, Dr. Anstice?"
For a moment Anstice suspected her of mockery. He was well aware that for all his real sympathy with acute suffering he was not remarkable for patience in cases of less reality; and he knew that the people whose ailments belonged to the latter category were apt to find his manner abrupt and unsympathetic.
But a glance at Iris' face showed him she had spoken in good faith; and he answered her in the same spirit.
"There are a good many men in the world who are far more sympathetic with suffering humanity than I, Miss Wayne." For a moment his face clouded, and Iris noticed the change wonderingly. "I'm afraid my manner isn't all it might be. It isn't that I'm not genuinely sorry for people who are, or think themselves, ill; but ..." for a second he hesitated, then a quite unusual impulse drove him into speech, "... the fact is, I once had a knock-down blow myself; and curiously enough it seemed to dull my capacity for entering into the sufferings of others."
She took him up with unexpected comprehension.
"I think I can understand that. It has always seemed to me that it is not the people who have suffered who sympathize ... they understand, if you know what I mean, but they aren't just sorry like the people who haven't had any sorrows of their own to spend their pity on...."
She broke off abruptly, and with equal abruptness Anstice suspended operations to ask, with a solicitude which belied his earlier speech, whether he were hurting her very badly.
"No ... not at all ... at least, hardly at all," she answered honestly. "I was just wishing I could explain myself better. Now take Mrs. Carstairs, for instance." Iris knew that Chloe had told Anstice her story. "She has suffered as very few people like her have to do, but I don't think it has made her exactly what you call sympathetic."
"That is just what I mean," said Anstice. "Somehow I think suffering is apt to destroy one's nerve of sympathy for others. It atrophies, withers away in the blast of one's personal tragedy; and although Mrs. Carstairs might be able to enter into the feelings of another unhappy woman more fully than—well, than you could do, I think you would be more likely to feel what we call 'sorry for' that woman than she would be."
"I'm glad you agree with me," said Iris slowly. "Dr. Anstice, would you think me very—impertinent—if I say I'm sorry you have been—unhappy—too? I—somehow I always thought you"—she stopped, flushed, but continued bravely—"you looked so sad sometimes I used to wonder if you too had suffered, like poor Mrs. Carstairs."