"He went into town this morning," Henrietta answered. "He told me to tell you to cheer up. I don't know what it's about, but probably you do. I was just on my way to tell you. Come on. Let's go back to your house."
Sally gave a sigh of relief. Fox had not forgotten, after all. There was nothing to do but to wait; but Sally was rather tired of waiting.
"Well, Henrietta," she said, "then we will. But I want to see Fox as soon as ever I can."
Fox at that moment was sitting in the private office of a physician—a specialist in headaches—and was just finishing his story. He had mentioned no names and it was hardly conceivable that he was talking about himself. Fox did not look like a person who was troubled with any kind of aches.
That seemed to be the opinion of the doctor, at any rate. It would have been your opinion or mine.
"I take it that you are not the patient," he said, smiling.
That doctor was not the type of the grasping specialist; he did not seem to be the kind of man who would charge as much as a patient would be likely to be able to pay—all that the traffic would bear. But who is, when you come to know them? Probably the doctors of that type, in any large city, could be counted on the fingers of one hand. I know of one conspicuous example, and one only, and he is dead now. But he squeezed out large fees while he lived, and became very rich; and he was so busy with his squeezing that he had no time to enjoy his gains—I had almost said his ill-gotten gains. But that is by the way.
This doctor of Fox's—we will call him Doctor Galen, for the sake of a name—this Doctor Galen was a kindly man, who had sat leaning one elbow on the table and looking out at Fox under a shading hand and half smiling. That half smile invited confidence, and, backed by the pleasant eyes, it usually got it. Whether that was the sole reason for its being is beside the question; but probably it was not.
In response to the doctor's remark, Fox smiled, too, and shook his head.
"Am I to see this patient of yours?" asked Doctor Galen casually.