really serious cases, a woman could not, at best, play more than second
fiddle. So, as has been seen, he patronized and encouraged Mary; he told
himself that, when she had thoroughly proved her capacity--within the
limits which he ascribed to it--to take her into partnership would not be
a bad arrangement. True, he could pretty well choose his patients now;
but as senior partner he would be able to do it completely. It was
well-nigh inconceivable that, for example, the Naylors--great
friends--should ever leave him; but he would like to be quite secure of
the pick of new patients, some of whom might, through ignorance or whim,
call in Mary. There was old Saffron, for instance. He was, in
Irechester's private opinion, or, perhaps it should be said in his
private suspicions, an interesting case; yet, just for that reason,
unreliable, and evidently ready to take offense. It was because of cases
of that kind that he contemplated offering partnership to Mary; he would
both be sure of keeping them and able to devote himself to them.

But his wife laughed at Mary, or at that development of the feminist
movement which had produced her and so many other more startling
phenomena. The Doctor was fond of his wife, a sprightly, would-be
fashionable, still very pretty woman. But her laughter, and the opinion
it represented, were to him the merest crackling of thorns under a pot.

The fine afternoon had come, a few days before Christmas, and he sat,
side by side with Mr. Naylor, both warmly wrapped in coats and rugs,
watching the lawn tennis at Old Place. Doctor Mary and Beaumaroy were
playing together, the latter accustoming himself to a finger short in
gripping his racquet, against Cynthia and Captain Alec. The Captain could
not yet cover the court in his old fashion, but his height and reach made
him formidable at the net, and Cynthia was very active. Ten days of
Inkston air had made a vast difference to Cynthia. And something else was