The Doctor’s Dilemma

of the ignorance and superstition of the patients, you’ll wonder that we’re half as good as we are. Ridgeon We’re not a profession: we’re a conspiracy. Sir Patrick All professions are conspiracies against the laity. And we can’t all be geniuses like you. Every fool can get ill; but every fool can’t be a good doctor: there are not enough good ones to go round. And for all you know, Bloomfield Bonington kills less people than you do. Ridgeon Oh, very likely. But he really ought to know the difference between a vaccine and an antitoxin. Stimulate the phagocytes! The vaccine doesn’t affect the phagocytes at all. He’s all wrong: hopelessly, dangerously wrong. To put a tube of serum into his hands is murder: simple murder. Emmy Returning. Now, Sir Patrick. How long more are you going to keep them horses standing in the draught? Sir Patrick What’s that to you, you old catamaran? Emmy Come, come, now! none of your temper to me. And it’s time for Colly to get to his work. Ridgeon Behave yourself, Emmy. Get out. Emmy Oh, I learnt how to behave myself before I learnt you to do it. I know what doctors are: sitting talking together about themselves when they ought to be with their poor patients. And I know what horses are, Sir Patrick. I was brought up in the country. Now be good; and come along. Sir Patrick Rising. Very well, very well, very well. Goodbye, Colly. He pats Ridgeon on the shoulder and goes out, turning for a moment at the door to look meditatively at Emmy and say, with grave conviction. You are an ugly old devil, and no mistake. Emmy Highly indignant, calling after him. You’re no beauty yourself. To Ridgeon, much flustered. They’ve no manners: they think they can say what they like to me; and you set them on, you do. I’ll teach them their places. Here now: are you going to see that poor thing or are you not? Ridgeon I tell you for the fiftieth time I won’t see anybody. Send her away. Emmy Oh, I’m tired of being told to send her away. What good will that do her? Ridgeon Must I get angry with you, Emmy? Emmy Coaxing. Come now: just see her for a minute to please me: there’s a good boy. She’s given me half-a-crown. She thinks it’s life and death to her husband for her to see you. Ridgeon Values her husband’s life at half-a-crown! Emmy Well, it’s all she can afford, poor lamb. Them others think nothing of half-a-sovereign just to talk about themselves to you, the sluts! Besides, she’ll put you in a good temper for the day, because it’s a good deed to see her; and she’s the sort that gets round you. Ridgeon Well, she hasn’t done so badly. For half-a-crown she’s had a consultation with Sir Ralph Bloomfield Bonington and Cutler Walpole. That’s six guineas’ worth to start with. I dare say she’s consulted Blenkinsop too: that’s another eighteenpence. Emmy Then you’ll see her for me, won’t you? Ridgeon Oh, send her up and be hanged. Emmy trots out, satisfied. Ridgeon calls. Redpenny! Redpenny Appearing at the door. What is it? Ridgeon There’s a patient coming up. If she hasn’t gone in five minutes, come in with an urgent call from the hospital for me. You understand: she’s to have a strong hint to go. Redpenny Right O! He vanishes. Ridgeon goes to the glass, and arranges his tie a little. Emmy Announcing. Mrs. Doobidad. Ridgeon leaves the glass and goes to the writing-table. The lady comes in. Emmy goes out and shuts the door. Ridgeon, who has put on an impenetrable and rather distant professional manner, turns to the lady, and invites her, by a gesture, to sit down on the couch. Mrs. Dubedat is beyond all demur an arrestingly good-looking young woman. She has something of the grace and romance of a wild creature, with a good deal of the elegance and dignity of a fine lady. Ridgeon, who is extremely susceptible to the beauty of women, instinctively assumes the defensive at once, and hardens his manner still more. He has an impression that she is very well dressed, but she has a figure on which any dress would look well, and carries herself with the unaffected distinction of a woman who has never in her life suffered from those doubts and fears as to her social position which spoil the manners of most middling people. She is tall, slender, and strong; has dark hair, dressed so as to look like hair and not like a bird’s nest or a pantaloon’s wig (fashion wavering just then between these two models); has unexpectedly narrow, subtle, dark-fringed eyes that alter her expression disturbingly when she is excited and flashes them wide open; is softly impetuous in her speech and swift in her movements; and is just now in mortal anxiety. She carries a portfolio. Mrs. Dubedat In low urgent tones. Doctor⁠— Ridgeon Curtly. Wait. Before you begin, let me tell you at once that I can do nothing for you. My hands are full. I sent you that message by my old servant. You would not take that answer. Mrs. Dubedat How could I? Ridgeon You bribed her. Mrs. Dubedat I⁠— Ridgeon That doesn’t matter. She coaxed me to see you. Well, you must take it from me now that with all the good will in the world, I cannot undertake another case. Mrs. Dubedat Doctor: you must save my husband. You must. When I explain to you, you will see that you must. It is not an ordinary case, not like any other case. He is not like anybody else in the world: oh, believe me, he is not. I can prove it to you: fingering her portfolio I have brought some things to show you. And you can save him: the papers say you can. Ridgeon What’s the matter? Tuberculosis? Mrs. Dubedat Yes. His left lung⁠— Ridgeon Yes: you needn’t