im anxiously, as he might watch his patients at the
hospital, and wondered whether he was beyond helping.

Hubert Brett said nothing. He was angry.

Why, he was wondering, had he telephoned for Boyd to come along at all?
He always _had_ asked Boyd, of course, even in the dear old Oxford
days, when he was in a difficulty. Boyd's great forehead, thick chin,
and deep voice gave him a sort of solid, comfortable air: and he was
never sympathetic.... Probably his medical work--it was not nice,
quite, to think of it like that--made him a restful person to consult?
He always smoothed you down and made you feel that what you meant to do
would be entirely for the best.

But he had been off form to-night....

Marry, indeed! Why, that had nothing to do with the case at all. It
was Ruth's maddening stupidity that had made him ask Kenneth in. These
rows with one's sister were horrible--and bad for work.... Besides,
they used to be such pals as kids: it wasn't nice, now, to be
quarrelling like any costermonger and his wife. Yet each absurd
quarrel was followed by one more absurd.

What had it been all about to-night? He had forgotten that already.
The actual row was a surprise. Ruth had started this one. He had not
seen it coming, even, till they were both on their feet.

She was so maddening, you see!

He didn't mind an egoist. He sometimes thought, in moments of
depression, he was one himself (but he did not believe in
introspection). It was an egoist who claimed to be a martyr that
aroused his anger.

Ruth was always claiming to have sacrificed herself. _She_ didn't
matter. No one must consider her. She hadn't married. She gave her
life up willingly to her dear brother. If he trod on her sometimes,
she only liked to feel that he was free to wing his way to fame. And
all that sort of stuff ... when all the while, she never did a single
thing he wanted, but in the most selfish way made everything as hard as
it could be for his work, when she herself was doing nothing! What a
fuss if he was half an hour or so late for their lonely meal! How
could it matter? He was in the middle of a paragraph, sometimes: and
what did she do after dinner, anyhow? Nothing but play Patience, while
he went back to work! How could it make any difference at what hour
she dined?...

Probably to-night had been some trifle of that sort: he had forgotten,
really; but at the end of it she had stood up and said, for the first
t