A joke. Annette smiled. Philippe threw her a sidelong glance. "It doesn't frighten you?"
"I am not ill," said Annette.
He stopped and looked at her. "No, you are not. In your presence one breathes the fragrance of health. It frees me from my physical and moral infections. The latter are the worst. Excuse my diatribe! But I've come from a meeting, a dispute with a gang of hypocrites over the official support of disease—that is, over hygiene. I was furious and suffocating with disgust, and when I saw you with your clear eyes, walking along so freely, with everything about you so proud and wholesome, I selfishly drank in a whiff of your air. There! It's better now. Thank you."
"So I'm promoted to the rank of a doctor. And after what you have just been saying about them?"
"Doctor, no. Medicine. Oxygen."
"You have a direct way with people!"
"This is the way I class them: inspiration, expiration, those who bring you to life and those who kill you, whom you must kill."
"Whom do you want to kill now?"
"Now?" He took her up. "Don't you think I have enough to do with my patients?"
"No, no, I couldn't help saying that," replied Annette, laughing. "It was my old classic blood. . . . But may I ask you with whom you were angry when I met you?"