their housemaids had it."

"Yes, that is so. There's enough of it about."

She wanted to inquire how the old man was, but she could not bring
herself to continue the subject with a person who somehow made her feel
that her questions were superfluous, if not actually impertinent. She
watched him fit a slide into his huge microscope, entirely absorbed by
the matter in hand. Patients as human beings meant nothing to him.
Two days later the thing occurred which altered her whole mode of life.

She was aware that something had happened when she arrived as usual in
the morning, for Jacques, who met her in the hall, had a somewhat
mysterious and wholly ironical manner.

"Ah, mademoiselle, what have I told you? Did I not say it would be so?"

"Say what? What do you mean?"

"Did I not say he was what you call fed up?"

"Jacques, what are you talking about?"

He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.

"Go in there; you will soon know. He is waiting to speak to you."

Considerably puzzled, she tapped on the consulting-room door and was
bidden to come in. As she did so, the doctor looked up from what
seemed an unusual confusion on his desk, and as his gaze encountered
hers she thought that the dull heaviness of his demeanour was oddly
lightened by a spark of something she could not define.

"Ah, Miss Rowe, you see me about to make a rather sudden change. The
fact is I have been persuaded to put aside my practice for a short
time--I can't say exactly how long it will be--and during the interval
to act as private physician to Sir Charles Clifford."

Frankly taken by surprise, Esther could at first only exclaim, "No,
really!" and wait for him to go on. Whatever had induced him to do
this? She reflected that the Cliffords must have offered him a good
deal of money.

"I have arranged with a colleague to take over my practice for the next
few weeks," the doctor continued, busy sorting papers as he spoke.
"Although naturally my patients can please themselves about going to
him. He is a competent man. Needless to say Sir Charles will make it
worth my while, and for the rest I badly need a holiday. The change
will do me good."

So this was why he looked more cheerful. Even a machine needs a rest
once in a while. Then Esther thought of that other work of his, the
research of which he seemed never to tire.

"What about your experiments?" she ventured.

"I shall be able to snatch a couple of hours now and