CHAPTER XXII

“The truth was felt by instinct here— Process which saves a world of time.”

DESPERATION, when it does not rave, becomes a calm; and it was with an almost listless quiet that Cynthia, sitting opposite her brother in his office, told him she was going away.

He nodded briefly, and went on writing prescriptions. He had not quite finished his evening’s work. The boy was to deliver them to his patients. The room was bare and light, with the usual rows of medical books, long suggestive chair, and the sturdy boy standing near a forbidding cupboard.

Cynthia’s eyes took in the surroundings as if they had been new to her.

She had argued bitterly with her brother over having no lamp-shades, and the naked bright skeleton roused in her now a sense of irritation. Would Geoff never be done, and why was he so little interested in her going away?

But he had always been a man of one idea, she thought, and what interest he had was buried in his prescriptions. Ten minutes later he sent off the boy with a curt order or two, then he turned and looked at his sister.

“Going away, are you?” he said. He might have been drawing out a shy child, or encouraging a nervous patient. Cynthia shrugged her shoulders.

“So I told you.”

“Have you thought why, or where, or when?”

“I am going to a place in Somerset on the red Bristol Channel, where they have mud, and sunsets, and one can be alone.”

“The desire for mud is very modern, and sunsets only happen once a day,” he replied thoughtfully. “And as for being alone, you couldn’t be in a better place than London, you know, for that. People can’t stand so much in the country. However, I daresay a rest would do you good. Mind you take some books—light ones; and be careful where you go for milk—it’s disgraceful how they adulterate it in out-of-way places.” He was giving her time, and observing with keen watching eyes the lines of trouble and pain marked in Cynthia’s face.

“Geoff!” she cried with a sudden wail in her voice, “I want you! I want you!” He knew that she did not mean him; but he took her in his arms and stroked her hair. Cynthia sobbed a little in a hard choked way; she could not let herself go completely even in a breakdown.

“Shall we go to Paris?” he asked gently. “I have always wanted to study under the professors there.” He looked around his meagre office-room peopled with his love, his work, his dreams, to stay there another year till success lay in his grasp, to win life for his cases, each one meaning to him what a battle means to a soldier; all that went to make interest, satisfaction, attainment, must go because a woman wanted—another man. He did not mince matters, he only repeated the magnificent lie that rang better than most truths, “I have always hoped for a chance like this!”

“But you couldn’t leave your practice?” she protested.

“I could get an assistant for a time to take my place. It’s only for six months or a year, isn’t it?”

“There’s Muriel—Geoff!” she reminded him.

“You told me to get the idea of her out of my head—perhaps six months or a year will do it,” said Dr. Grant. He was smiling grimly to himself as he spoke. When a man attempts endurance it makes for something very fine. When Cynthia looked at him she saw nothing but kind, half-amused and wholly sympathetic eyes.

“I think it’s splendid you’re so placid,” she said; “I don’t believe you feel things at all.”

“I feel very much being kept away from my supper after working hard all day!” he laughed mischievously.

“Oh, you poor, dear thing! I’ll see about it at once!” she cried running from the room.

The doctor flung open the window wide and stood watching the streaming crowd in the dusk. The lights seemed alive against the dark masses of houses—impenetrable, mysterious, holding life-histories—and showing nothing but blank strong faces to the passers-by.

The doctor believed in no God at all; but when he looked above the house-tops to the sky, peopled by myriad stars, he felt a moment’s emotion, a thrill of hope, courage and strength.

God believed in him perhaps, and because he would not draw near with faith led him by his most unreasonable passion—love of humanity—nearer than he knew to the divine in humanity.