"Thank you; but I'd better hire something if they can't send the car from home. I may not get away till late. Troop-trains are pouring in, and there is a great deal to be done. There are the Hospital festivities to be considered." The doctor repressed an inclination to say that he knew all about the Hospital festivities, and instead answered that he quite understood, but could arrange to call for Miss Vivian at any hour convenient to her. "I will let you know, if I may." Char, nothing if not self-possessed, rose to her feet, and it became obvious that the interview was over. "Good-night, Dr. Prince." The dismissed doctor hurried downstairs, muttering to himself, after his fashion when vexed and disconcerted. At the foot of the stairs he overtook Grace Jones with her hat and coat on. She looked up at him with her ready, pleased smile. "Good-night, doctor. I'm so glad you found Miss Vivian disengaged." "Conceited monkey--" began Dr. Prince, almost automatically, then hastily recollected himself and said: "Yes, yes. Are you off duty now?" "Just. I've got to go down to the station and see about a case of anti-tetanic serum for one of the hospitals, which is due by the 7.50 train, but I can take it up there to-morrow. You know how precious it is, and we daren't trust the orderlies with it since Coles had that smash." "To be sure. Well, I'll drive you down in my car to get it, if you like, and then I can take it up to the Hospital. I've got to go there again tonight." "Oh, thank you." The doctor liked the pleased gratitude in Grace's voice. "I want so much to know how Sir Piers Vivian is," she said presently. The doctor shook his head. "A question of time, you know, when there's been a stroke--at that age. He doesn't rally very much, either. And the brain, Miss Jones, is clouded. We can't deny that it's clouded." "Oh, poor Lady Vivian!" "She knows it as well as I do. Doesn't let on, you know, but she's never been deluded from the first. And there she is all day, in the room, you know, except just when he's sleeping, reading to him, and talking quite cheerfully and trying to get him to take a pleasure in some little thing or other. I've never seen her break down, and we doctors see that sort of thing when other people don't sometimes. But she's been under a strain for a long while now--oh, before he got ill--and yet she carries on somehow. Ah, breeding is a wonderful thing, Miss Jones. There have been Vivians at Plessing for more generations than I can count, and _she_ was a Trevellyan. They're from these parts, too, though it's a West Country name. I may be an old snob, Miss Jones, but I was brought up to reverence those whom God Almighty had set in high places, and the Vivians of Plessing have always stood to me for the highest in the land. A pity there isn't a son there!" "Yes."