"Isn't it a bit irksome for a young man like you? Don't you want to specialize? Don't you find a country G.P. practice rather boring?" Lord shook his sandy head.

"No, I like my job. I like people, you know, and I like ordinary everyday diseases. I don't really want to pin down the rare bacillus of an obscure disease. I like measles and chicken pox and all the rest of it. I like seeing how different bodies react to them. I like seeing if I can't improve on recognized treatment. The trouble with me is I've got absolutely no ambition. I shall stay here till I grow side-whiskers and people begin saying, ‘Of course, we've always had Dr. Lord, and he's a nice old man; but he's very old-fashioned in his methods and perhaps we'd better call in young so-and-so, who's very up to date.'"

"H'm," said Mrs. Welman. "You seem to have got it all taped out!" 27

Peter Lord got up. "Well," he said, "I must be off," Mrs. Welman said, "My niece will want to speak to you, I expect. By the way, what do you think of her? You haven't seen her before." Dr. Lord went suddenly scarlet. His very eyebrows blushed. He said, "I - oh! she's very good-looking, isn't she? And - er - clever and all that, I should think."

Mrs. Welman was diverted. She thought to herself, How very young he is, really. Aloud she said, "You ought to get married." III

Roddy had wandered into the garden. He had crossed the broad sweep of lawn and gone along a paved walk and had then entered the walled kitchen-garden. It was well-kept and well-stocked. He wondered if he and Elinor would live at Hunterbury one day. He supposed that they would. He himself would like that. He preferred country life. He was a little doubtful about Elinor. Perhaps she'd like living in London better. A little difficult to know where you were with Elinor. She didn't reveal much of what she thought and felt about things. He liked that about her. He hated people who reeled off their thoughts and feelings to you, who took it for granted that you wanted to know all their inner mechanism. Reserve was always more interesting.

Elinor, he thought judicially, was really quite perfect. Nothing about her ever jarred or offended. She was delightful to look at, witty to talk to - altogether the most charming of companions, He thought complacently to himself, I'm damned lucky to have got her. Can't think what she sees in a chap like me. For Roderick Welman, in spite of his fastidiousness, was not conceited. It did honestly strike him as strange that Elinor should have consented to marry him.

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