"Oh! mine is simple. To a doctor life is merely the converse of death, and death is the devil! We cannot prescribe for a corpse--or for the matter of that levy a fee for so doing--and that is the end and aim of doctoring."
"Why should you say those things, Dr. Ramsay?" she asked quietly. "You know you never take one--at least you would take none from me."
He flushed slightly. "Because I did nothing--and you were an interesting case. I levy a big fee of experience, Mrs. Tressilian. But concerning this boy--my colleagues are against me, and----" He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't think the world will come to an end if No. 36 goes out of it. I shouldn't mind if it did--it isn't worth much."
"But are you not bound?" she persisted. "You have no right to judge what his life might be. A doctor's duty is to save life and defy death at all costs."
"You have got it quite pat, Mrs. Tressilian. That is my duty undoubtedly; but--but I can't afford to do it--as yet--and after all, there is plenty of time--we have a few centuries of evolution before us yet."
"But you--you yourself?" she asked, scanning his face eagerly.
"I," he answered. "I am a temporary aggregation of molecules, or, let us say, electrons. By and by we shall find another word to express the infinitely little--or the infinitely great----"
Here a shrill whistle from the speaking-tube made Helen start and Peter Ramsay smile. "That, I'll bet, will be the infinitely little." He leant over to listen, and his face hardened. "I must go--an old man, apparently in a fit, brought in from the street. Good-bye, Mrs. Tressilian. I'll try and save _his_ life anyhow."
She lingered on in the room for a while after he had left it, laying an orderly hand almost unconsciously here and there, and feeling that, had she dared, she would like to have gone into his bedroom beyond, and seen if there were any buttons on the back of his shirts. She remembered having heard him ask the matron for the loan of a safety--pin; that looked ominous.
He, meanwhile, going hastily into the surgery, saw a white-haired figure lying flat on the table, and, having the gift of swift diagnosis, called as he entered,
"Prop him up, please--and--dresser--amyl, sharp."