"It makes for a temperament that is too--what shall I call it?--unpractical. You have a gift--a great gift--but it is not for nursing; you are too sentimental." "And how do you arrive at that conclusion?" she asked, interested in spite of herself. "Excuse me!" He touched the muslin cuff she wore with a hand she could not help admiring: it was so shapely, so strong, so skilful-looking, albeit so small for a man of his height. Yet her eyes flashed a quick challenge at him. "You mean that it is sentimental and unpractical to mourn those one loves. I do not agree with you." The sunlight glinting through his eyes turned them almost to amber. There was a world of gentle raillery in them at which, however, it was impossible to be angry. "To wear your heart on your sleeve?--yes," he replied. "Ah, Mrs. Tressilian, believe me, you are lost to the world! What a wife you would have made with your ardent imagination to some grovelling slave tied down, as I am, by the nose, to the body of things! But that is another story, and so is clairvoyance, though in your present state I'm convinced you could see. The point at issue remains that----" he paused. "Well!" she asked almost eagerly. He laughed. "My patients say I prescribe Paradise, when I beg them not to fash themselves. But there is one thing I have found out. I can't tell you why, but worry stops the working of the vital machine. It gets into the cogs somehow and clogs the wheels. Then you fall back on reserve-force, and having exhausted that, feel exhausted. We doctors nowadays are helpless before the feeling of hustle. We prescribe rest-cures, but you can worry as much, perhaps more, on the flat of the back! The remedy lies with the patient. And you have so much imagination, Mrs. Tressilian. Used cheerfully, it is the most valuable therapeutic agent we have. Ah! here comes your father. Some of the hotel people want to take us all back to tea, and I expect he is coming to ask you about it." She looked at him steadily, but he showed no consciousness, and she turned to meet Sir Geoffrey feeling baffled. She had known about and had meant to avoid this tea; but something in the very directness of Dr. Ramsay's unsought diagnosis roused her to show him its incorrectness. Anyhow she found herself rather to her disgust not only going to the hotel, but going in the front seat of Mr. Hirsch's motor.