With a grin of satisfied pride the junior partner departed, but once
outside the gloomy expression returned.

"It's only choir-tickets!" he told Ann, who was waiting around the
corner of the house. "Come on--let's go fishin'."

Inside the office Esther and the doctor looked at each other and smiled.
He, because he felt like smiling; she, because she felt nervous. Yet it
was not going to be as awkward as she had feared. With a decided sense
of relief she realised that Dr. Callandar looked exactly like a doctor
after all! Convention, even in clothes, has a calming effect. There was
little of the weary tramp who had quenched his throat at the school
pump in the well groomed and quietly capable looking doctor. With a
notable decrease of tension Esther saw that the man before her was a
stranger, a pleasant, professional stranger, with whom no embarrassment
was possible.

As for him he realised nothing except that Coombe was really a
delightful place. He felt glad that he had stayed.

"No one ill, I hope, Miss Coombe?" His tone, even, seemed to have lost
the whimsical inflection of the tramp.

"No, Doctor. Not ill exactly. It is Aunt Amy. We cannot understand just
what is the matter. You see, Aunty imagines things. She is not quite
like other people. Perhaps," with a quick smile as she thought of Mrs.
Sykes, "perhaps you may have heard of her--of her fantastic ideas? They
are really quite harmless and apart from them she is the most sensible
person I know. But lately, just the other day, something happened--"