"I was at Johns Hopkins," said Vesta. "It was the beginning of my second year; I broke down, and had to give it up. I was studying medicine myself, Doctor Strong."
"Oh!" cried Geoffrey Strong.
The exclamation was a singular one; a long cry of amazement and reprobation. Every fibre of the man stiffened, and he sat rigid, a statue of Disapproval.
"I beg your pardon!" he said, after a moment. "I said it before, but I don't know that there is anything else to say. No doubt I was very stupid, yet I hardly know how I could have supposed just this to be the truth. I—no! I beg your pardon. That is all."
The girl looked keenly at him. "You are not sorry for me any more, are you?" she said.
Geoffrey was silent.
"You were sorry, very sorry!" she went on. "So long as you thought I had lost that precious possession, a lover; had lost the divine privilege of—what is the kind of thing they say? merging my life in another's, becoming the meek and gentle helpmeet of my God-given lord and master—you were very sorry. I could not make it out; it was so unlike what I expected from you. It was so human, so kind, so—yes, so womanlike. But the moment you find it is not a man, but only the aspiration of a lifetime, the same aspiration that in you is right and fitting and beautiful—you—you sit there like a—lamp-post—and disapprove of me."
"I am sorry!" said Geoffrey. He was trying hard to be reasonable, and said to himself that he would not be irritated, come what might. "I cannot approve of women studying medicine, but I am sorry for you, Miss Blyth."
Her face, which had been bitter enough in its set and scornful beauty, suddenly melted into a bewildering softness of light and laughter. She leaned forward. "But it was funny!" she said. "It was very, very funny, Doctor Strong, you must admit that. You were so compassionate, so kind, thinking me—"
"Do you think perhaps—but never mind! you certainly have the right to say whatever you choose," said Geoffrey, holding himself carefully.