"Played menagerie?"
"Yes. I made a hollow square with the cribs and some chairs, and they were the lions, and I was the tamer. We played for an hour,—Mrs. Binney was tired, and I made her go and lie down,—and then I sang them to sleep, dear little lambs, and came away and left them."
"I see!" said Geoffrey. "That is what made you so late. Do you think it's exactly professional to play menagerie for an hour and a half with your patients?"
Vesta laughed; the happy sound of her laughter fretted his nerves.
"I suppose that is the way you will practise, when you have taken your degree!" he said, disagreeably.
The girl flushed, and the happy light left her eyes. "Don't talk of that!" she said. "I told you I had given it up once and for all."
"But you are well now; and—I am bound to say—you seem in many ways qualified for a physician. You might try again when you are entirely strong."
"And break down again? thank you. No; I have proved to myself that I cannot do it, and there is an end."
"Then—it's no business of mine, of course—what will you do?" asked Geoffrey. His ill-temper was dying out. The sound of her voice, so full, so even, so cordial, filled him like wine. He wanted her to go on talking; it did not matter much about what.
"What will you do?" he repeated, as the girl remained silent.