in America), "besides, the fellow probably hopes to make a
good impression on the bride, and so get taken on as family physician."

"He'll be disappointed about _that_!" I exclaimed, with a flash of
naughty joy, for somehow I'd made up my mind not to like Doctor
Jennings. "Major Murray has promised Rosemary and me to consult Beverley
Drake about himself. It's the most perfect thing that Sir Beverley
should be in Exeter! Not to call him to the case would be tempting
Providence!"

Jim doesn't know or care much about doctors, but even he knew something
of Sir Beverley Drake. He is the man, of course, who did such wonders in
the war for soldiers who'd contracted obscure tropical diseases while
serving in Egypt, India, Mesopotamia, Salonika, and so on.

You could bet pretty safely that a person named Drake would be of
Devonshire extraction, and you would not lose your money on Beverley of
that ilk.

He had spent half his life in the East, and hadn't been settled down as
a Harley Street specialist for many years when the war broke out.
Between 1914 and 1919 he had worn himself to a thread in France, and had
temporarily retired from active life to rest in his native town, Exeter.
But he had known both my wonderful grandmother and old Mr. Ralston. He
wasn't likely to refuse his services to Ralston Murray. Consequently, I
didn't quite see Doctor Paul Jennings getting a professional foothold in
Major Murray's house, no matter what his personal charm might be.

As it turned out, the personal charm was a matter of opinion. Jennings
had the brightest eyes and the reddest lips ever seen on a man. He was
youngish, and looked more like a soldier than a doctor. Long ago some
Ralston girl had married a Jennings; consequently, the cousinship,
distant as it was. But though you can't associate Spain with a
"Jennings," there was Spanish blood in the man's veins. If you had met
him in Madrid, he would have looked more at home than as a doctor in a
Devonshire village. Not that he had stuck permanently to the village
since taking up practice there. He had gone to the Front, and brought
back a decoration. Also he had brought back a French wife, said to have
been an actress.

I heard some of these things from Murray, some from Jennings himself on
the day of the wedding. And they made me more curious about the man than
I should have been otherwise. Why, for instance, the Parisian wife? Do
Parisian women, especially actresses, marry obscure