You're better.
You'll be perfectly well if you'll only get up and go out. Why waste
all this glorious air?"
"If I could live on air!" said Alice.
"You can--you do to a very large extent. You certainly can't live
without it."
Downstairs he lingered. But he refused the tea that Gwenda offered
him. He said he hadn't time. Patients were waiting for him.
"But I'll look in next Wednesday, if I may."
"At teatime?"
"Very well--at teatime."
* * * * *
"How's Alice?" said the Vicar when he returned from Upthorne.
"She's better."
"Has that fellow Rowcliffe been here again?"
"He called--on you, I think."
(Rowcliffe's cards lay on the table flap in the passage, proving
plainly that his visit was not professional.)
"And you made him see her?" he insisted.
"He saw her."
"Well?"
"He says she's all right. She'll be well if only she'll go out in the
open air."
"It's what I've been dinning into her for the last three months. She
doesn't want a doctor to tell her that."
He drew her into the study and closed the door. He was not angry. He
had more than ever his air of wisdom and of patience.
"Look here, Gwenda," he said gravely. "I know what I'm doing. There's
nothing in the world the matter with her. But she'll never be well as
long as you keep on sending for young Rowcliffe."
But his daughter Gwendolen was not impressed. She knew what it
meant--that air of wisdom and of patience.
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