"What's that?" she said, resignedly. She did not want to listen just then. She wanted to be quiet and think out the very obtrusive financial and moral problem of getting away. She felt like Lot when he knew of the destruction to come upon the cities of the Plain. But she felt one couldn't walk out of things as Lot had walked. Only—she had to do her worrying with placid face, giving lip-service to his entertainment; it would never do for him to know the convolutions that had led her to any conclusion; he was an innate pessimist, she an optimist. So she thought with half her mind and listened with the other half.
"Midwifery! We call it midder, you know," he said. "I was always awfully interested in women—as cases."
He took out an envelope to make notes, and a pencil. She felt a little compunction as she saw his look of keen interest and realized that the study of medicine was probably the only thing on earth that could take him out of himself.
"We've to begin at the beginning," he said intently. "It's amazing how few lay people know even the elements of embryology."
She heard his voice, and all the time she was wondering if she could write and tell her uncle the truth, asking him to let her and Louis come and work for him without any pay till they had paid back the fifty pounds she had borrowed. He had said it was far from civilization. That was what she needed!
"See?" came Louis's voice, keen and interested, and the words "cells" and "mulberry-form" floated into her consciousness.
"Yes, I think I will—it's the only way," she said, answering aloud the silent question.
"I don't believe you've heard a word, you young sinner! You confounded second-sighted Kelts—one never knows where you are! But next week I'll give you a written examination. It's not a bit of use swotting a thing half heartedly."
She dragged herself to attention, reproaching herself for damping his interest. Things he was saying dropped into her consciousness like heavy drops of rain falling from the eaves in a light summer shower. Suddenly she gripped his wrist tensely and he looked up in surprise. Her face was flushed, her eyes shining and sending out little flashes. He had never seen her like this before. His pencil and paper dropped. The paper fluttered over the wall, the pencil dropped after it.
"There, that's my only pencil," he said. "You have got the jerks, old lady. What's wrong?"