"I shan't run any risk of missing Dr. Kincaid by going out; I needn't be afraid of that!" she added.
Her voice had in it so much more of pathos than of testiness, that after the instant's dismay her companion felt acutely sorry for her.
"A doctor's time is scarcely his own, is it?" she murmured, turning.
Mrs. Kincaid did not reply immediately, and the delay seemed to Mary to accentuate the feebleness of her answer.
"I mean," she said, "that it isn't as if he were able to leave the hospital whenever he liked. There may be cases——"
"He used to be able to come often; why shouldn't he be able now?"
"Yes——" faltered Mary.
"I haven't asked him; it is a good reason that keeps him from me, of course. But it's hard, when you're living in the same town as your son, not to have him with you more than an hour in a month. I don't see much more of him than that, lately. The last time he came, he stayed twenty minutes. The time before, he said he was in a hurry before he said, 'How do you do?' He never put his hat down—you may have; noticed it?"
"Yes, I noticed it," Mary admitted.
"You know; oh, you do know!" she cried inwardly, with a sinking of the heart. "Now, what am I to do?"