The Doctor’s Dilemma

moment she runs away with it through the private door. The Secretary takes a mirror from his drawer and smartens himself before going out. Ridgeon comes in. Ridgeon Good morning. May I look round, as well, before the doors open? The Secretary Certainly, Sir Colenso. I’m sorry catalogues have not come: I’m just going to see about them. Heres my own list, if you don’t mind. Ridgeon Thanks. What’s this? He takes up one the new books. The Secretary That’s just come in. An advance copy of Mrs. Dubedat’s Life of her late husband. Ridgeon Reading the title. The Story of a King of Men. By His Wife. He looks at the portrait frontispiece. Ay: there he is. You knew him here, I suppose. The Secretary Oh, we knew him. Better than she did, Sir Colenso, in some ways, perhaps. Ridgeon So did I. They look significantly at one another. I’ll take a look round. The Secretary puts on the shining hat and goes out. Ridgeon begins looking at the pictures. Presently he comes back to the table for a magnifying glass, and scrutinizes a drawing very closely. He sighs; shakes his head, as if constrained to admit the extraordinary fascination and merit of the work; then marks the Secretary’s list. Proceeding with his survey, he disappears behind the screen. Jennifer comes back with her book. A look round satisfies her that she is alone. She seats herself at the table and admires the memoir⁠—her first printed book⁠—to her heart’s content. Ridgeon reappears, face to the wall, scrutinizing the drawings. After using his glass again, he steps back to get a more distant view of one of the larger pictures. She hastily closes the book at the sound; looks round; recognizes him; and stares, petrified. He takes a further step back which brings him nearer to her. Ridgeon Shaking his head as before, ejaculates. Clever brute! She flushes as though he had struck her. He turns to put the glass down on the desk, and finds himself face to face with her intent gaze. I beg your pardon. I thought I was alone. Jennifer Controlling herself, and speaking steadily and meaningly. I am glad we have met, Sir Colenso Ridgeon. I met Dr. Blenkinsop yesterday. I congratulate you on a wonderful cure. Ridgeon Can find no words; makes an embarrassed gesture of assent after a moment’s silence, and puts down the glass and the Secretary’s list on the table. Jennifer He looked the picture of health and strength and prosperity. She looks for a moment at the walls, contrasting Blenkinsop’s fortune with the artist’s fate. Ridgeon In low tones, still embarrassed. He has been fortunate. Jennifer Very fortunate. His life has been spared. Ridgeon I mean that he has been made a Medical Officer of Health. He cured the Chairman of the Borough Council very successfully. Jennifer With your medicines? Ridgeon No. I believe it was with a pound of ripe greengages. Jennifer With deep gravity. Funny! Ridgeon Yes. Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh. Jennifer Dr. Blenkinsop said one very strange thing to me. Ridgeon What was that? Jennifer He said that private practice in medicine ought to be put down by law. When I asked him why, he said that private doctors were ignorant licensed murderers. Ridgeon That is what the public doctor always thinks of the private doctor. Well, Blenkinsop ought to know. He was a private doctor long enough himself. Come! you have talked at me long enough. Talk to me. You have something to reproach me with. There is reproach in your face, in your voice: you are full of it. Out with it. Jennifer It is too late for reproaches now. When I turned and saw you just now, I wondered how you could come here coolly to look at his pictures. You answered the question. To you, he was only a clever brute. Ridgeon Quivering. Oh, don’t. You know I did not know you were here. Jennifer Raising her head a little with a quite gentle impulse of pride. You think it only mattered because I heard it. As if it could touch me, or touch him! Don’t you see that what is really dreadful is that to you living things have no souls. Ridgeon With a sceptical shrug. The soul is an organ I have not come across in the course of my anatomical work. Jennifer You know you would not dare to say such a silly thing as that to anybody but a woman whose mind you despise. If you dissected me you could not find my conscience. Do you think I have got none? Ridgeon I have met people who had none. Jennifer Clever brutes? Do you know, doctor, that some of the dearest and most faithful friends I ever had were only brutes! You would have vivisected them. The dearest and greatest of all my friends had a sort of beauty and affectionateness that only animals have. I hope you may never feel what I felt when I had to put him into the hands of men who defend the torture of animals because they are only brutes. Ridgeon Well, did you find us so very cruel, after all? They tell me that though you have dropped me, you stay for weeks with the Bloomfield Boningtons and the Walpoles. I think it must be true, because they never mention you to me now. Jennifer The animals in Sir Ralph’s house are like spoiled children. When Mr. Walpole had to take a splinter out of the mastiff’s paw, I had to hold the poor dog myself; and Mr. Walpole had to turn Sir Ralph out of the room. And Mrs. Walpole has to tell the gardener not to kill wasps when Mr. Walpole is looking. But there are doctors who are naturally cruel; and there are others who get used to cruelty and are callous about it. They blind themselves to the souls of animals; and