“I am not sick,” she cried. They stared at each other in reciprocal amazement and mystification.
“Then excuse me if I ask you what you wish me to do?”
“Oh!” said Grace, realizing his natural error, with a flush. “It isn’t in regard to myself that I wish to consult with you. It’s another person—a friend”—
“Well,” said Dr. Mulbridge, laughing, with the impatience of a physician used to making short cuts through the elaborate and reluctant statements of ladies seeking advice, “what is the matter with your friend?”
“She has been an invalid for some time,” replied Grace. The laugh, which had its edge of patronage and conceit, stung her into self-possession again, and she briefly gave the points of Mrs. Maynard’s case, with the recent accident and the symptoms developed during the night. He listened attentively, nodding his head at times, and now and then glancing sharply at her, as one might at a surprisingly intelligent child.
“I must see her,” he said decidedly, when she came to an end. “I will see her as soon as possible. I will come over to Jocelyn’s this afternoon,—as soon as I can get my dinner, in fact.”
There was such a tone of dismissal in his words that she rose, and he promptly followed her example. She stood hesitating a moment. Then, “I don’t know whether you understood that I wish merely to consult with you,” she said; “that I don’t wish to relinquish the case to you”—
“Relinquish the case—consult”—Dr. Mulbridge stared at her. “No, I don’t understand. What do you mean by not relinquishing the case? If there is some one else in attendance.”
“I am in attendance,” said the girl firmly. “I am Mrs. Maynard’s physician.”
“You? Physician”