"I don't think it's such an awfully high grade of work," he went on. "In a way it is--of course. But there's so much repetition and routine; so much that doesn't count scientifically at all--doesn't count for anything but the patient." "But what is science for?" she demanded, aggravated now. "Has medical science any value save in its relation to human beings?" "Oh yes, I know--in the end," he admitted vaguely. "All this laboratory work is simply to throw more power into the hands of the general practitioner. It's to give him more light. It's just because his work _is_ so important that this work has any reason for being. Dr. Hubers saw it that way," she concluded, with the air of delivering the unanswerable. "But even that wasn't just what I meant," she went on, after they had worked silently for a few minutes. "What I was thinking about was the superdoctor." Beason simply stared. "No, not entirely crazy," she laughed. "For instance: what can a man do for nervous indigestion without infusing a little hope? Think of what doctors know--not only about people's bodies, but about their lives. Cause and effect overlap--don't they? Half the time a run down body means a broken spirit, or a twisted life. How can you set part of a thing right when the whole of it's wrong? How _can_ a doctor be just a doctor--if he's a good one?" But nothing "super" could be expected of Beason. His very blank face recalled her to the absurdity of getting out of focus with one's audience. She herself felt it strongly. It seemed to her that Dr. Parkman's real gift was his endowment in intuition. When all was going well she heard nothing from him; but let things begin to drag, and the doctor appeared, rich in resources. He seemed to have in reserve a wide variety of stimulants. He looked in upon them often. Whenever in their neighbourhood he stopped, and though frequently he could not so much as take time to sit down, the day always went a little better for his coming. "If the end of the world were upon us, Dr. Parkman could avert the calamity for a day or two--couldn't he, Karl?" Ernestine had laughed after one of his visits. This proved to be one of the days of his stopping in, and he arrived just as Karl was dictating a few final sentences to Mr. Ross. While they were finishing--he said he was not in a hurry today--he took a keen look at Karl's face. His colour was not good--the doctor thought; in fact several things were not to his liking. "Too many hard times with himself," he summed it up.--"Droopy. Needs a bracer. Needs to get back in the harness--that's the only medicine for him."