n and that I have a
personal objection to masculine ladies."

It was an exceedingly rude speech, and he was ashamed of it the instant
after he had made it. The lady, however, simply raised her eyebrows
and smiled.

"It seems to me that you are begging the question," said she. "Of
course, if it makes women masculine that WOULD be a considerable
deterioration."

It was a neat little counter, and Dr. Ripley, like a pinked fencer,
bowed his acknowledgment.

"I must go," said he.

"I am sorry that we cannot come to some more friendly conclusion since
we are to be neighbours," she remarked.

He bowed again, and took a step towards the door.

"It was a singular coincidence," she continued, "that at the instant
that you called I was reading your paper on 'Locomotor Ataxia,' in the
Lancet."

"Indeed," said he drily.

"I thought it was a very able monograph."

"You are very good."

"But the views which you attribute to Professor Pitres, of Bordeaux,
have been repudiated by him."

"I have his pamphlet of 1890," said Dr. Ripley angrily.

"Here is his pamphlet of 1891." She picked it from among a litter of
periodicals. "If you have time to glance your eye down this
passage----"

Dr. Ripley took it from her and shot rapidly through the paragraph
which she indicated. There was no denying that it completely knocked
the bottom out of his own article. He threw it down, and with another
frigid bow he made for the door. As he took the reins from the groom
he glanced round and saw that the lady was standing at her window, and
it seemed to him that she was laughing heartily.

All day the memory of this interview haunted him. He felt that he had
come very badly out of it. She had showed herself to be his superior
on his own pet subject. She had been courteous while he had been rude,
self-possessed when he had been angry. And then, above all, there was
her presence, her monstrous intrusion to rankle in his mind. A woman
doctor had been an abstract thing before, repugnant but distant. Now
she was there in actual practice, with a brass plate up just like his
own, competing for the same patients. Not that he feared competition,
but he objected to this lowering of his ideal of womanhood. She could
not be more than thirty, and had a bright, mobile face, too. He
thought of her humorous eyes, and of her strong, well-turned chin. It
revolted him the more to recall the details of her education. A man,
of course, c