He stepped back and looked at her admiringly.
“Did I say wild rose? It should have been tea rose. I am indeed an artist,” he said softly, a new expression creeping into his honest eyes.
Claire gazed at herself in the tiny mirror. The change both frightened and delighted her.
“Don’t you think it’s wicked?—why, you’d never know it wasn’t real!” she cried femininely.
“Of course not. But like all prescriptions it mustn’t be overdone. It should be taken homeopathically, in microscopic doses.”
“It makes me feel so daring,” said Claire, as they emerged on to the street.
“That’s just what you need,” he replied promptly. “Audacity, more audacity, and still more audacity, as Balzac or some other old French geezer said.”
The drive home was almost too short. Dr. Elliott talked of himself and his ambition, and Claire listened with real interest. It seemed obstetrics was to be his specialty, as it was obviously his god.
“You have no idea what a need there is for it in small towns,” he told her enthusiastically. “The countless farmers’ wives that could be saved if they had the proper attention! Pregnancy should be treated as a real sickness. If you leave it all to nature, the old lady goes about it in her usual, sloppy, destructive way. But give it the proper attention and it responds like a flash.” He gave her a quick, piercing look. “Child-birth is no longer a bugaboo of the Old Testament, thanks to science, and I’m going to make it my business to prove it.”
A little tremulous and self-conscious, Claire looked at him with trepidation. Would he be mentioning her own condition soon?