from "poaching"; she fancied that men were very
ready to accuse women of not "playing the game" and had been resolved
to give no color to such an accusation. "Mr. Saffron has sent for
me--professionally. He's ill, it seems," she said to Cynthia.

"Why shouldn't he?"

"Because he is a patient of Dr. Irechester, not a patient of mine."

"But people often change their doctors, don't they? He thinks you're
cleverer, I suppose, and I expect you are really."

There was no use in expounding professional etiquette to Cynthia. Mary
had to decide the point for herself, and quickly; the old man might be
seriously ill. Beaumaroy had said at the Naylors' that his attacks were
sometimes alarming.

Suddenly she recollected that he had also seemed to hint that they were
more alarming than Irechester appeared to appreciate; she had not taken
much notice of that hint at the time, but now it recurred to her very
distinctly. There was no suggestion of the sort in Beaumaroy's letter.
Beaumaroy had written a letter that could be shown to Irechester! Was
that dishonesty, or only a pardonable diplomacy?

"I suppose I must go, and explain to Dr. Irechester afterwards." She rang
the bell, to recall the maid, and gave her answer. "Say I will be round
as soon as possible. Is the messenger walking?"

"He's got a bicycle, Miss."

"All right. I shall be there almost as soon as he is."

She seemed to have no alternative, just as Beaumaroy had none. Yet while
she put on her mackintosh, it was very wet and misty, got out her car,
and lit her lamps, her face was still fretful and her mind disturbed. For
now, as she looked back on it, Beaumaroy's conversation with her at Old
Place seemed just a prelude to this summons, and meant to prepare her for
it. Perhaps that too was pardonable diplomacy, and no reference to it
could be expected in a letter which she was at liberty to show to Dr.
Irechester. She wondered, uncomfortably, how Irechester would take it.

CHAPTER V

A FAMILIAR IMPLEMENT

As Mary brought her car to a stand at the gate of the little front garden
of Tower Cottage, she saw, through the mist, Beaumaroy's corrugated face;
he was standing in the doorway, and the light in the passage revealed it.
It seemed to her to wear a triumphant impish look, but this vanished as
he advanced to meet her, relieved her of the neat black handbag which she
always carried with her on her visits, and suggested gravely that she
should at once