“Of course not . . . of course not,” said Edwin. He felt very much of a fraud, for he hadn’t the least idea how long it would be. The whole picture was moving: the patient, a girl of twenty-four or five, her honey-coloured hair drawn back tightly from a face that was blotched already with tears, but not ill-looking: the humility of the little bedroom with its hired furniture and certain humble attempts at ornamentation: pink ribbon bows upon the curtains, a ridiculous china ornament on the mantelpiece, and brass knobs at the foot of the bedstead, so polished that they had already become loose. No doubt Mrs. Higgins the second had been in respectable suburban service, and these worthy efforts were the signs of an attempt to introduce into Rea Barn Lane the amenities of Alvaston. She lay quietly on the bed, gazing at nothing while Edwin unpacked his bag. He did not look at her, but became suddenly conscious that her body had given a kind of jump and that her hands were desperately clutching a towel that Mrs. Brown had knotted to the rail at the bottom of the bed. Then he heard the joints of the bedstead creak. “It’s all right. Cheer up. . . . It won’t be long,” he said. Mrs. Brown emerged panting from the stairway with hot water. “That’s right, my lover, that’s right. . . . That’s another one less. Now, let the doctor have a look at you.” A strange business. . . . It was a moment that might have been difficult; but Edwin soon realised that the seriousness of the occasion, the fact that this young creature’s life was veritably in his hands, made modesty seem a thing of no account. In the eyes of this woman Edwin was not a young man but an agency of relief from pain. In the body that pain dominated there could be no room for blushes. Edwin, trying to summon all his hardly learned theory to his aid in practice, was suddenly impressed with the obligations that this confidence imposed on him. He remembered the terms of the Hippocratic oath. Yea . . a goodly heritage! “Is it all right, doctor?” said the anxious voice of Mrs. Brown. “Yes, it’s all right.” “Thank the Lord for that! You hear what the doctor says, my lover—” “But it will be a long time yet.” “Oh, don’t say that, doctor, don’t say that,” Mrs. Higgins wailed. “You aren’t going to leave me?” “It’s no good staying here now,” he said, as gently as he could. “It’s really all right. It’s only a matter of time.” “Can’t you help her a bit, doctor?” Of course he couldn’t. A business of that kind would mean calling in the house-surgeon from the Prince’s. He was determined not to be driven into a panic, though this would have been easy enough, when he was convinced that the case was taking a normal though inevitably lengthy course. “I expect you’ll want me again some time this evening,” he said. Mrs. Brown showed him downstairs. “You’re _sure_ it is all right, aren’t you, doctor?” she said. “Perfectly all right. You know what a first case is.”