“A delightful morning, I can assure you. Excuse me, Miss Ellison, the cover of that magazine you have been reading reminds me of a certain female’s hair. Would you mind removing it from sight?”
“Is the memory so poignant?”
“Poignant! And she has freckles the size of pease. Ugh! I wonder why it is that one’s patients always seem to conspire against one by being mulish and irritating all on the same day?”
“Something in the air, perhaps. Poor man!”
“Poor man, it is, I assure you, when you have had a series of cantankerous old ladies to blarney. I wonder if I might have a glass of sherry? Oh, don’t bother, let me get it.”
As though the mere offer absolved him from all further effort, Dr. Little sat still and fed while Madge Ellison rummaged in the sideboard for the decanter.
“How much, a tumblerful?”
She bent over him as she poured out the wine, the gold chain she wore dangling against his cheek.
“Thanks. Three fingers. How angelic a thing is woman!”
“Even when she has freckles and straw-colored hair?”