"I simply don't believe you," said H. R.
"It matters little whether you believe me or not. I have told you the truth. I am a very much older woman than you, and it has been my recreation all my life--for want of a better--to watch the people round me and dissect their motives. Old maids are good judges of character. You yourself will find you are a better judge of character in a few years' time than you are now."
Then, with this final lash from her tongue, Miss Bird stalked out of the room, while Miss H. R. Maybury, feeling considerably crestfallen, made her way downstairs to commence her household duties.
Somehow or other Dora got through this miserable day. At lunch and tea and dinner she hardly spoke a word, but she brightened up when her father got home from the office, where he had been working later than usual in order to be free the next day. He had brought an evening paper with him, and read out the latest bulletin concerning the Earl of Lingfield's health.
"So," added the ex-merchant, "our friend Dr Mortimer was not sent for merely to assist. According to this bulletin he actually performed the operation--a very perilous one, I am told."
"It will make him," said Miss Bird, laying down her knitting needles.
"Yes," agreed Mr Maybury, "a man possessed of his nerve and skill will be in great demand. I am sorry in one way, because it will mean that he will leave us."
"I hope this success won't turn his head and drive him back to his vicious courses," said Mrs Maybury, somewhat severely.
Mr Cleave was scanning the new number of his favourite weekly.
"I should not be surprised," he conjectured, in his quavering tenor, "if alcohol proved Mortimer's stumbling-block in life. There is a sad case in the Abstainer's list this week of a young naval doctor who has lately lost his post on account of his habitual drunkenness."