"La!" said she. "It's the delicate-minded gentleman!"

Peter groaned. "Am I so hopelessly beyond forgiveness? I ask it
very humbly."

"What condescension!"

"It is cruel to mock me," said he, and adopted mock-humility. "After
all, I am but a slave. And you might be ill one of these days."

"What, then?"

"It would be humiliating to send for me if you treat me like an enemy."

"You are not the only doctor in Bridgetown."

"But I am the least dangerous."

She grew suddenly suspicious of him, aware that he was permitting
himself to rally her, and in a measure she had already yielded to
it. She stiffened, and looked him over again.

"You make too free, I think," she rebuked him.

"A doctor's privilege."

"I am not your patient. Please to remember it in future." And on
that, unquestionably angry, she departed.

"Now is she a vixen or am I a fool, or is it both?" he asked the