id="id00297">"Because he is a patient of Dr. Irechester, not a patient of mine."

"But people often change their doctors, don't they? He thinks you're cleverer, I suppose, and I expect you are really."

There was no use in expounding professional etiquette to Cynthia. Mary had to decide the point for herself, and quickly; the old man might be seriously ill. Beaumaroy had said at the Naylors' that his attacks were sometimes alarming.

Suddenly she recollected that he had also seemed to hint that they were more alarming than Irechester appeared to appreciate; she had not taken much notice of that hint at the time, but now it recurred to her very distinctly. There was no suggestion of the sort in Beaumaroy's letter. Beaumaroy had written a letter that could be shown to Irechester! Was that dishonesty, or only a pardonable diplomacy?

"I suppose I must go, and explain to Dr. Irechester afterwards." She rang the bell, to recall the maid, and gave her answer. "Say I will be round as soon as possible. Is the messenger walking?"

"He's got a bicycle, Miss."

"All right. I shall be there almost as soon as he is."

She seemed to have no alternative, just as Beaumaroy had none. Yet while she put on her mackintosh, it was very wet and misty, got out her car, and lit her lamps, her face was still fretful and her mind disturbed. For now, as she looked back on it, Beaumaroy's conversation with her at Old Place seemed just a prelude to this summons, and meant to prepare her for it. Perhaps that too was pardonable diplomacy, and no reference to it could be expected in a letter which she was at liberty to show to Dr. Irechester. She wondered, uncomfortably, how Irechester would take it.