office if you wish."

"You have an office?"

"Certainly. A doctor has to have an office. This way."

Callandar strode across the room and opened a door in the opposite wall.
It led into another room, smaller, with no veranda in front of it, yet
with a window looking toward the road and two side windows through which
the after flush of sunrise streamed. Its door opened upon a small stone
stoop set in the grass of the front lawn. The furniture of the room was
plain, not to say severe. Cool matting covered the painted floor,
hemstitched curtains of linen scrim hung at the windows. There was a
businesslike desk, a couch, a reclining chair, a stool by the door;
another chair, straight and uncompromising, behind the desk. That
was all.

Willits looked around him in a kind of dazed surprise. "Office!" he kept
murmuring. "_Office_!"

"All rather plain, you see," said Callandar regretfully. "But for a
beginner with his way to make, not so bad. My patients, three up to
date, quite understand and conceal their commiseration with perfect good
breeding. Also, the room has natural advantages, it is in the nature of
an annex, you see, with a door of its own. Quite cut off from the rest
of the house save-for the door by which we entered, the parlour door,
which Mrs. Sykes informs me I may lock if I choose although she feels
sure that I know her too well to imagine any undue liberties
being taken!"