"It would be professional," said Vesta. "Come, Doctor Strong, you see I can laugh about it, and you must laugh, too. Let us shake hands, and agree to forget all about it."

Geoffrey shook hands, and said she was very magnanimous; but he still felt hollow. The only further remark that his seething brain presented was a sc.r.a.p of ancient doggerel:

"I wish I was dead, Or down at Owl's Head, Or anywhere else but here!"

This was manifestly inappropriate, so he kept silence, and paddled on doggedly.

"And aren't you going to ask what my disappointment really was?"

inquired Vesta, presently. "But perhaps you have guessed?"

No, Geoffrey had not guessed.

"Don't you want to know? I should really--it would be a comfort to me to talk it over with you, if you don't mind."

Geoffrey would be delighted to hear anything that she chose to tell him.

"Yes, you seem delighted. Well--you see, you have not understood, not understood in the very least; and now in a moment you are going to know all about it." She paused for a moment, and there was an appeal in her clear, direct gaze; but Geoffrey did not want to be appealed to.

"I was at Johns Hopkins," said Vesta. "It was the beginning of my second year; I broke down, and had to give it up. I was studying medicine myself, Doctor Strong."

"Oh!" cried Geoffrey Strong.

The exclamation was a singular one; a long cry of amazement and reprobation. Every fibre of the man stiffened, and he sat rigid, a statue of Disapproval.

"I beg your pardon!" he said, after a moment. "I said it before, but I don't know that there is anything else to say. No doubt I was very stupid, yet I hardly know how I could have supposed just this to be the truth. I--no! I beg your pardon. That is all."

The girl looked keenly at him. "You are not sorry for me any more, are you?" she said.

Geoffrey was silent.

"You were sorry, very sorry!" she went on. "So long as you thought I had lost that precious possession, a lover; had lost the divine privilege of--what is the kind of thing they say? merging my life in another's, becoming the meek and gentle helpmeet of my G.o.d-given lord and master--you were very sorry. I could not make it out; it was so unlike what I expected from you. It was so human, so kind, so--yes, so womanlike. But the moment you find it is not a man, but only the aspiration of a lifetime, the same aspiration that in you is right and fitting and beautiful--you--you sit there like a--lamp-post--and disapprove of me."

"I am sorry!" said Geoffrey. He was trying hard to be reasonable, and said to himself that he would not be irritated, come what might. "I cannot approve of women studying medicine, but I am sorry for you, Miss Blyth."

Her face, which had been bitter enough in its set and scornful beauty, suddenly melted into a bewildering softness of light and laughter. She leaned forward. "But it was funny!" she said. "It was very, very funny, Doctor Strong, you must admit that. You were so compa.s.sionate, so kind, thinking me--"

"Do you think perhaps--but never mind! you certainly have the right to say whatever you choose," said Geoffrey, holding himself carefully.

"And all the time," she went on, "I utterly unconscious, and only fretting because I could not have my own life, my own will, my own way!"

"By Jove!" said Geoffrey, starting. "That--that's what I say myself!"

"Really!" said Vesta, dryly. "You see I also am human, after all"

"Do you see little Vesta anywhere, sister?" asked Miss Phoebe Blyth.

Miss Vesta had just lighted her lamp, and was standing with folded hands, in her usual peaceful att.i.tude of content, gazing out upon the sunset sea. A black line lay out there on the rosy gold of the water; she had been watching it, watching the rhythmic flash of the paddle, and thinking happy, gentle thoughts, such as old ladies of tender heart often think. Miss Phoebe had no part in these thoughts, and Miss Vesta looked hurriedly round at the sound of her crisp utterance. Her breath fluttered a little, but she did not speak. Miss Phoebe came up behind her and peered out of the window. "I don't see where the child can be,"

she said, rather querulously. "I thought she was in the garden, but I don't--do you see her anywhere, Vesta?"

Miss Vesta had never read the "Pickwick Papers;" she considered d.i.c.kens vulgar; but her conduct at this moment resembled that of Samuel Weller on a certain noted occasion. Raising her eyes to the twilight sky, Miss Vesta said, gently, "No, Sister Phoebe, I do not!"

CHAPTER IX.

SIDE LIGHTS

ELMERTON, June 20, 1900.

DEAR JIM:--It is rather curious that you should have written me this particular letter at this particular time. 'Give me a man's coincidences and I'll give you his life!' Who is it says that?

You want my opinion about women's studying medicine; you personally have reason to think that the career of medicine is not incompatible with true womanliness, exquisite refinement, perfect grace and breeding. I really cannot copy your whole letter. The symptoms are, alas, only too familiar! You have met your Fate again (and those foolish old Greeks used to believe there were only three of 'em!) and she is a doctor, or is going to be one. Well--it's curious, as I said, for it happens that I have been thinking more or less about the same matter. I used to feel very strongly about it--hang it, I still feel very strongly about it! A girl doesn't know what she is doing when she goes into medicine. I grant that she does it, in many cases, from the highest possible motives. I grant that she is far ahead of most men in her ideas of the profession, and what it means, or ought to mean. But, all the same, she doesn't know what she is going in for, and I cannot conceive of a man's letting any woman he cares for go on with it. She must lose something; she must, I tell you; she cannot help it. And even if it isn't the essential things, still it changes her. She is less woman, less--whatever you choose to call it. A coa.r.s.er touch has come upon her, and she is changed. Well, I say I believe all this, and I do, with all my soul; and yet, as you say, it's cruel hard for a young creature, all keyed up to a pitch of enthusiasm and devotion and n.o.ble aspiration, to be checked like a boy's kite, and brought down to the ground and told to mind her seam. It's cruel hard, I can see that; I can feel and sympathise intensely with all that part of it, and honour the purpose and the spirit, even though I cannot approve of the direction.

Oh, glancing at your letter again, I see that in your friend's case everything seems to be going on smoothly. Well, the principle remains the same. I suppose--I seem to have drifted away from your question, somehow--I suppose one woman in ten thousand _may_ make a good physician. I suppose that this ten-thousandth woman--a woman who is all that you say--may be justified, perhaps, in becoming a physician; whether a woman physician can _remain_ all that you say--ah! that is the question!

Man alive, am I Phoebus Apollo, that I should know the answers to all the questions? I wish I could find the way to Delphi myself.

But don't get the idea that you bore me with your confidences, old man. Did I say so? on the contrary, tell me all you can; it interests me extremely.

I am thinking about these matters--pathologically--a good deal. A physician has to, of course. Tell me how you feel, how it takes you.

Do you find it gets into your breathing sometimes, like rarefied air? Curious sensation, rarefied air--I remember it on Mont Blanc.

What am I doing? Man, I am practising medicine!

Cases at present, one typhoid, two tonsilitis, five measles, eight dyspepsia, six rheumatism, _et id gen om._, one cantankerousness (she calls it depression), one gluttony, one nerves. Pretty busy, but my wheel keeps me in good trim. I have been paddling more or less, too, to keep chest and arms up with the rest of the procession.

The old ladies are as dear as ever; if I am not wholly spoilt, it will not be their fault, bless their kind hearts! The niece is better, I think.

Good-bye, old man! write again soon, and tell me more about Amaryllis. How pretty the cla.s.sical names are: Chloe, Lalage, Diana, Vesta. I was brought up on Fannies and Minnies and Lotties, with Eliza for a change. Horrible name, Eliza!

GEOFF.

The young doctor had just posted the above letter, and was sauntering along the street on his way home. It lacked an hour of tea-time, and he was wondering which of several things he should do. There was hardly time for a paddle; besides, Vesta Blyth had gone for a drive with the minister's daughter. Geoffrey did not think driving half as good for her as being on the water. He must contrive to get through his afternoon calls earlier to-morrow. He might stop and see how Tommy Candy was,--no! there was Tommy, sitting by the roadside, pouring sand over his head from a tin cup. He was all right, then; the young doctor thought he would be if they stopped dosing him, and fed him like a Christian for a day or two. Well,--there was no one else who could not wait till morning. Why should he not go and call on Mrs. Tree? here he was at the house. It was the hour when in cities the sophisticated cl.u.s.tered about five o'clock tea-tables, and tested the comfort of various chairs, and indulged in talk as thin as the china and bread and b.u.t.ter. Five o'clock tea was unknown in Elmerton, but Mrs. Tree would be glad to see him, and he always enjoyed a crack with her.

He turned in at the neat gate. The house stood well back from the street, in the trimmest and primmest little garden that ever was seen.

Most of the shrubs were as old as their owner, and had something of her wrinkled sprightliness; and the annuals felt their responsibilities, and tried to live up to the York and Lancaster rose and the strawberry bush.

The door was opened by a Brownie, disguised in a cap and ap.r.o.n. This was Direxia Hawkes, aunt to Diploma Grotty. In his mind Geoffrey had christened the little house the Aunt's Nest, but he never dared to tell anybody this.

"Well, Direxia, how is Mrs. Tree to-day? would she like to see me, do you think?"

"She ain't no need to see you!"

The young doctor looked grieved, and turned away.

"But I expect she'd be pleased to. Step in!"

This was Direxia's one joke, and she never tired of it; no more did Geoffrey. He entered the cool dim parlour, which smelt of red cedar; the walls were panelled with it. The floor was of polished oak, dark with age; the chairs and tables were of rare foreign woods, satin and leopard wood, violet-wood and ebony. The late Captain Tree had been a man of fancy, and, sailing on many seas, never forgot his name, but bought precious woods wherever he found them.