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He spoke again:

“I can assure you that Dr. Leonard meant no discourtesy. The new arrangement means nothing further than that your trouble is more distinctively within my province. It is his custom, once he has thoroughly diagnosed a case, to assign it to the one of his assistants best qualified to treat it. Dr. Leonard is a very busy man; he can’t be expected to do more than supervise his aides.”

And now he was actually rebuking her!

He bowed once more, and moved toward the door. His hand was upon the knob, when an imperious command brought him to a standstill.

“Wait,” said Miss Willis. “Dr. Carter, if I remain here–“

He coolly interrupted. “Pardon me, Miss Willis, but my patient is waiting. I shall be at liberty in ten minutes, then I shall return.”

This time he was gone.

Number Four must have been an adjoining room, for the next instant she could hear Dr. Carter’s voice through the thin board partition. His speech was as unemotional and businesslike as when addressing her. She could not make up her mind whether to go or wait, and so sat pondering and presently forgot to go.

Here was a man such as she had never dreamed of as existing; one absolutely disinterested, who treated people–even people like Clementine Willis–as abstractly as a master mechanic goes about repairing a worn-out engine. Perhaps it was a characteristically feminine decision at which she presently arrived, but anyway she made up her mind, then and there, to know more of this man.

After a while Miss Willis fell to surveying the room; with an undefined hope, perhaps, that it would throw some further light upon the young doctor’s character. It was essentially the home of a busy man. Every article had a use and a definite one. The spirit of the place was contagious, and presently she began to have a feeling that she was the one useless thing there.

In one corner of the room was the desk where he had been writing, upon which was a pile of loose manuscript. Reference books were scattered all about, some with improvised bookmarks, but mostly face downward, just as they had been left. The environment was that of one who seeks to overtake and outstrip Time, rather than to forget him.

Dr. Carter returned at last, entering quickly but quietly.

“Pardon my leaving you so abruptly,” he apologized, the impersonal note again in his voice, and an inquiry as well. He seemed surprised that she had not departed.

The girl was manifestly at a loss for words; this was such an extraordinary predicament for her to find herself in that she determined to say something at any cost.

“Dr. Carter,” she faltered, “I–have changed my mind; I–I–wish you to continue my treatment–if you will.” It was not at all what she had intended saying, and she was chagrined to feel her cheeks grow suddenly hot; she knew that they must be rosy.

It was likely that young Dr. Carter was unused to smiling; but suddenly his eyes were alight. He spoke, and the dry, impersonal note was gone.

“I’m glad,” he said. “We hard-working doctors can stand almost anything–without caring a snap of our fingers, too–but when it comes to doubting or questioning–not our methods, but those that have been tried and proven, and of which we merely avail ourselves,–why, we can’t be expected to waste much sympathy on the scoffers.”

He rang the inevitable bell, and gave word to the maid: “Tell Dr. Leonard that Miss Willis has decided to continue her treatment with me.”

Now, in the light of the foregoing experience, it was strange that during the next week Miss Willis’s throat should require considerably more attention than it ever had under the celebrated specialist’s personal ministrations. She made five visits to Dr. Carter, but it could not be said that he had advanced an inch toward the opening she had made. His voice and manner were a bit more sympathetic–and that was all.