Part 65 (2/2)
”That accounts for the singular coincidence,” Beth observed; but, girl-like, she thought less at the moment of the little insincerity than of the compliment his following her implied.
They dined that evening with Lady Benyon. It was a quiet little family party, including Uncle James and Aunt Grace Mary. The doctor was the only stranger present. He looked very well in evening dress.
”Striking, isn't he?” Aunt Grace Mary whispered to Beth. ”Such colouring!”
”And how are you, Dan?” was Uncle James's greeting, uttered with an affectation of cordiality in his unexpected little voice that interested Beth. She wondered what was toward. She noticed, too, that she herself was an object of special attention, and her heart expanded with gratification. Very little kindness went a long way with Beth.
Dr. Dan took her in to dinner.
”By the way,” he said, looking across the table at Uncle James, ”I went to see that old Mrs. Prince, your keeper's mother, as I promised.
She's a wonderful old woman for eighty-five. I shouldn't be surprised if she lived to a hundred.”
”Dear! dear!” Uncle James e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed with something like consternation.
”I seem to have put my foot in it somehow,” Dr. Dan remarked to Beth confidentially.
”If you do anything to keep her alive you will,” Beth answered. ”Uncle James always speaks bitterly about elderly women;--about old ones he is perfectly rabid. He seems to think they rob worthy men of part of their time by living so long.”
It was arranged before the party broke up that the doctor should drive Beth to Fairholm in the Benyon dogcart to lunch next day. Beth was surprised and delighted to find herself the object of so much consideration. Dr. Dan, as they all called him, began to be a.s.sociated in her mind with happy days.
”Have you come to live here?” she asked as they drove along.
”No,” he answered. ”I am only putting in the time until I can settle down to a practice of my own. I have just heard of one which I shall buy if I can get an appointment I am trying for in the same place.”
”What is the appointment?” Beth asked.
”It's a hospital I want to be put in charge of,” he answered casually,--”a small affair, but I should get a regular income from it, and that would make my rent, and all that sort of thing, secure. A doctor has to set up with a show of affluence.”
”It is a terrible profession to me, the medical profession,” Beth said. ”The responsibilities must be so great and so various.”
”Oh, I never think of that,” he answered easily.
”_I_ should,” Beth rejoined.
”Yes, _you_ would, of course,” he said; ”and that shows what folly it is for women to go in for medicine. They worry about this and that, things that are the patient's look-out, not the doctor's, and make no end of mischief; besides always losing their heads in a difficulty.”
Just then the horse, which had been very fidgety all the way, bolted.
The blood rushed into the doctor's face. ”Sit tight! sit tight!” he exclaimed. ”Don't now,--now don't move and make a fuss. Keep cool.”
”Keep cool yourself,” said Beth dryly. ”_I_'m all right.”
Dr. Dan glanced at her sideways, and saw that she was laughing.
When they arrived at Fairholm, he made much of the incident. ”If I hadn't had my wits about me, there would have been a smash,” he vowed.
”But I happened to be on the spot myself, and Miss Beth behaved admirably. Most girls would have shrieked, you know, but she behaved heroically.”
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