“Glad you’ve come at last, doctor; we’ve been waiting long enough.”
They ushered Murchison into the parlor, a room that cultivated ugliness from the wool-work mantel-cover to the red and yellow rug before the door. Murchison, like most professional men, had become accustomed to the impertinent petulance of sundry middle-class patients. Unstrung and inwardly humiliated as he was that night, the austere woman’s tartness roused his impatience.
“My car broke down on the way. How is Mr. Baxter?” and he pulled off his gloves.
“Bad, sir, sorry to say. I can’t think, doctor, how you could send that young chap over here.”
“Dr. Inglis?”
“He don’t know his business; we hadn’t any faith in him from the minute he entered the door.”
“Dr. Inglis is perfectly competent to represent me when I am away from Roxton.”
“Indeed, doctor, I beg to differ.”
Mrs. Baxter’s grieved contempt suggested that Murchison had no Christian right to rest or eat when duty called him. Had the lady been less selfish and aggressive she might have been struck by the man’s tired eyes and nervous, irritable manner. But Mrs. Baxter was one of those crude and complacent people who never consider the sensitive complexities of others.
“I will see your husband at once.”