CHAPTER XXXII
THE DOCTOR HAS HIS WAY
It was in response to the doctor's telephone message that Ernestine went down to his office one afternoon a few days later. Dr. Parkman had been detained at the hospital, they told her, but would be there very soon, and so she sat down in the waiting room, which was already well filled. Were there always people there waiting for him—and did they not sometimes grow impatient and want to find a doctor who would not keep them waiting so long?
The woman sitting near her looked friendly, and so she asked: "Don't you get very tired waiting for Dr. Parkman?"
"Oh, yes," sighed the woman, "very tired."
"Then why don't you go to some doctor who would attend to you more quickly?" she pursued, moved chiefly by the desire to see what would happen.
The woman stared, grew red, and replied frigidly: "Because I do not wish to."
All the other patients were staring at Ernestine, too. "Why don't you do that yourself?" asked a large woman with a sick-looking small boy.
"I guess if there was anything much the matter with you, you'd be willing to wait," said a pale woman with a weary voice.
And then a man—she was sure that man was a victim of cancer—said loftily: "A doctor you never have to wait for isn't the doctor you want."