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Rh I was beyond convention. He really tried hard to persuade me, urged Dr. Lansdowne's degrees and qualifications, his seniority. I grew angry in the end.

"Surely I need not have either of you if I don't want to. I suppose there are other doctors in the neighbourhood."

He gave me a list of the medical men practising in and about Pineland; it was not at all badly done, he praised everybody yet made me see them clearly. In the end I told him I would choose my own medical attendant when I wanted one.

"Am I dismissed, then?" he asked.

"Have you ever been summoned?" I answered in the same tone.

"Seriously now, I'd like to be of use to you if you'd let me."

"In order to retain the entrée to the house where the wonderful Margaret moved and had her being?"

"No! Well, perhaps yes, partly. And you are a very attractive woman yourself."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"It is quite true. I expect you know it."

"I'm over forty and ill. I suppose that is what you find attractive, that I am ill?"

"I don't think so. I hate hysterical women as a rule."

"Hysterical!"