“Oh no, but I was so dreadfully sleepy that I was afraid to ride, and the ladies lent me their bullock-cart. They are to send the horse back later in the day. You mustn’t think that I am generally so much overcome by sleep after spending a night out of bed as I am now. When I was in hospital I thought nothing of sitting up. It is simply that I am out of practice.”
“Of course,” said Dick, politely, suppressing the retort he would infallibly have made had things been in their normal condition. It was so pleasant to be caring for Georgia in this way, without feeling the slightest desire to quarrel with her, that he began to wish she would be called out every night by her professional duties. What did his own broken slumbers signify? At any rate, he had stolen a march on that young fool Anstruther now. He had not thought of seeing that Miss Keeling had something to eat when she came in. And Dick caught himself afterwards recalling with something like tenderness, a feeling which was obviously out of the question, the pressure of Miss Keeling’s hand as she shook hands with him before going indoors, and the tones of her voice as she said—
“Thank you so much, Major North. It was most kind of you to take all this trouble for me. I hope you won’t be very tired after getting up so early.”
“Oh, I just happened to be out here. I didn’t sleep very well,” he explained, airily, and went off well satisfied with his own readiness of resource, not dreaming that Georgia, in her own room, was saying bitterly to herself as she took down her hair—
“He need not have told me so particularly that he didn’t get up because of me. I knew he did not, of course, but it wasn’t necessary for him to say it. Well, I shall not presume upon his kindness, although he is afraid I may.”
The natural consequence of this deceitful excess of candour on Dick’s part was, that when he met her next, he found that he had lost any ground which his ready services might have gained for him in Miss Keeling’s estimation. For him the events of the early morning had cast a glamour over the rest of the day, and when he saw Georgia again towards evening, he was prepared to meet her with the friendliness natural between two people who had found the barrier of prejudice which separated them partially broken down. But she received him with the easy graciousness she would have shown to the merest acquaintance, expressing her gratitude for his kindness, indeed, but ignoring entirely the approach to something like intimacy which he thought had been established between them. Dick was not accustomed to be repulsed in this way, and when he overheard Georgia telling Sir Dugald how fortunate it had been for her that she found Major North up when she returned, and how kind he had been in getting her some coffee, his wrath, if not loud, was deep. She was betraying what he liked to think of as a secret known only to their two selves, and making an ass of him before the other fellows. This led him to remember that, after all, circumstances were unchanged. Georgia was still a doctor, and displayed no symptoms of being convinced, whether against her will or otherwise, by his arguments against the existence of medical women, or of discontinuing the practice of her profession. Nay more, Dick was beginning to see that it was unlikely she would ever be so convinced, and that if there was to be peace between them it must be on the basis of acquiescence in facts as they were. Hence, as he was still determined under no circumstances to extend even the barest toleration to lady doctors, it is not surprising that Dick felt himself a much injured man, and that his soul revolted a dozen times a-day against the conclusions at which he had been forced to arrive.
As for Georgia, she continued to take pains to show him that she quite understood his view of the case, which she did not, and devoted herself largely to itinerating in the country round with Miss Jenkins and Miss Guest. She was welcomed on account of her medical skill in many places where they had not been able to gain a footing, and had the pleasure of knowing that she left these houses open to her friends for the future. The work proved to be so interesting that she was very sorry to leave it, and on the eve of departure she confided to Lady Haigh the resolution she had definitely formed to come back to Bab-us-Sahel when the Mission returned from Kubbet-ul-Haj, and to settle down with Miss Guest and Miss Jenkins.
“Nonsense, Georgie! you mustn’t throw away your talents like that,” cried Lady Haigh, aghast.
“But I should only stay here until they would allow me to settle on the frontier, of course,” said Georgia.
“I wish General Keeling were alive,” said Lady Haigh, irritably. “He would very soon put a stop to these absurd schemes. Or I wish you were married. That would do as well.”