It comforted Dora a little to have Dr. Roland placed with herself among the outsiders who could not interfere, especially when Miss Bethune added: “That is just the grievance. We would all like to have a finger in the pie. Why should a man be taken out of the care of his natural friends and given into the charge of these women, that never saw him in their lives before, nor care whether he lives or dies?”
“Oh, they care—for their own reputation. There is nothing to be said against the women, they’ll do their duty,” said the doctor. “But there’s Vereker, that has never studied his constitution—that sees just the present symptoms, and no more. Take the child out for a walk, Miss Bethune, and let’s have her fresh and fair for him, at least, if"—the doctor pulled himself up hastily, and coughed to swallow the last alarming syllable,—“fresh and fair,” he added hastily, “when he gets better, which is a period with which no nurses can interfere.”
A colloquy, which was silent yet full of eager interest and feeling, sprang up between two pairs of eyes at the moment that if—most alarming of conjectures—was uttered. Miss Bethune questioned; the doctor replied. Then he said in an undertone: “A constitution never very strong,—exhausting work, exhausting emotions, unnatural peace in the latter life.”
Dora was being led away by Gilchrist to get her hat for the proposed walk; and Dr. Roland ended in his ordinary voice.
“Do you call that unnatural peace, with all the right circumstances of his life round him, and—and full possession of his bonnie girl, that has never been parted from him? I don’t call that unnatural.”
“You would if you were aware of the other side of it lopped off—one half of him, as it were, paralysed.”
“Doctor,” said Miss Bethune, with a curious smile, “I ought to take that as a compliment to my sex, as the fools say—if I cared a button for my sex or any such nonsense! But there is yourself, now, gets on very well, so far as I can see, with that side, as you call it, just as much lopped off.”
“How do you know?” said the doctor. “I may be letting concealment, like a worm in the bud, feed on my damask cheek. But I allow,” he said, with a laugh, “I do get on very well: and so, if you will permit me to say it, do you, Miss Bethune. But then, you see, we have never known anything else.”
Something leaped up in Miss Bethune’s eye—a strange light, which the doctor could not interpret, though it did not escape his observation. “To be sure,” she said, nodding her head, “we have never known anything else. And that changes the case altogether.”
“That changes the case. I say nothing against a celibate life. I have always preferred it—it suits me better. I never cared,” he added, again with a laugh, “to have too much baggage to move about.”