The Lady Doc Part 24

"And allow you to go on experimenting?"

He saw that she hesitated. She was thinking that she need not tell him she had known such a one.

"Of course there are high-brows who set the standards for themselves and others pretty high, and if I acted, or failed to act, in violation of all recognized methods of procedure, and with fatal results, they _might_ make me trouble. But you can bet," she finished with a grin, "the ethics of the profession have saved many a poor quack's hide."

"Quack?"

"Oh, they may have diplomas. A diploma doesn't mean so much in these days of cheap medical colleges where they grind 'em out by the hundreds; you need only know where to go and have the price."

"This is--illuminating." Symes wondered at her candor. She seemed very sure of her position with him, he thought.

"What difference does it make where your diploma's from to jays like these?" She waved her arm at Crowheart. "A little horse sense, a bold front, a hypodermic needle, and a few pills will put you a long way on your road among this cla.s.s of people. I'm talkin' pretty free to an outsider, but," she looked at him significantly, "I know we can trust each other."

The implication irritated him, but he ignored it for the present.

"Do you mean to tell me," he demanded, "that there are medical schools where you can _buy_ a diploma? Where _anybody_ can get through?"

She laughed at his amazement.

"A quiz-compend and a good memory will put a farm-hand or a sheep-herder through if he can read and write; he doesn't have to have a High School education." She inquired jocularly, appearing to find enjoyment in shocking him: "You've seen my hated rival, haven't you--Lamb, the new M.D. that pulled in here the other day? His wife looks like a horse with a straw bonnet on and he ought to be jailed on sight if there's anything in Lombroso's theories. Have you noticed him?"

Symes nodded.

"He laid brick until he was thirty-five," she added nonchalantly. "I've thought some of taking him in with me on this contract, for some men, working men especially, are devilish prejudiced against women doctors."

Symes's eyes narrowed.

"Why share the--spoils?"

"It's a good thing to have somebody like him to slough the blame on in case of trouble."

"By gad!"--the exclamation burst from him involuntarily--"but you're a cold-blooded proposition."

She construed this as a compliment.

"Merely business foresight, my dear Mr. Symes," she smirked complacently. "Some fool, you know, might think he could get a judgment if he didn't like the way we handled him."

"And you're sure he couldn't?"

"Lord!--no. Not out here." Her leg slipped over her knee and her foot slumped to the floor. She slid lower in the chair, until her head rested on the back, her sprawling legs outstretched, her fingers clasped across her starched waistcoat, upon her face an expression of humorous disdain.

"Let me tell you a story to ill.u.s.trate what you can do and get away with it--to ease your mind if you're afraid of gettin' into trouble on my account. A friend of mine who had a diploma from my school came out West to practise and she had a case of a fellow with a slashed wrist--the tendons were plumb severed. She didn't know how to draw 'em together, so she just sewed up the outside skin. They shrunk, and he lost the use of his hand. Then he goes back East for treatment and comes home full of talk about damage suits and that sort of thing. Well, sir, she just bluffed him down. Told him she had fixed 'em all right, but when he was drunk he had torn the tendons loose and was tryin' to lay the blame on her. She made her bluff stick, too. Funny, wasn't it?"

"Excruciating," said Symes.

She seemed strangely indifferent to his sarcasm--to his opinion.

"I can promise you," she urged, "that I'll be equal to any emergency."

"I've no doubt of it," he returned.

Symes smoked hard; he was thinking, not of the contract which he intended to peremptorily refuse, but how best, in what words to tell this woman that now more than ever he wished the intimacy between her and his wife to end.

At the close of an impatient silence she demanded bluntly--

"Do I get the contract?"

With equal bluntness he responded--

"You do not."

She straightened herself instantly in the chair and he knew from the look in her eyes that the clash had come.

"Do you want a bigger rake-off?" she sneered offensively.

"Do you think I'm a petty thief?"

She shrugged her shoulder cynically, but answered--

"It's legitimate."

"Perhaps; but I don't choose to do it. I refuse to force your confessedly inexperienced and incompetent services upon my men. What you ask is impossible."

He expected an outburst but none came; instead, she sat looking at him with a twisted smile.

"You'd better reconsider," she said at last, and there was in her voice and manner the taunting confidence of a "gun-man" who has his hand at his hip.

Symes spat out a particle of tobacco with angry vehemence and his ruddy face turned redder.

"My answer is final."

Her composure grew with his loss of it.

"I hoped it wouldn't be necessary to remind you of your first visit here, but it seems it is."

That was it then--the source of her a.s.surance--she meant to trade upon, to make capital of a professional secret. It was like her to remind him of an obligation, to attain her ends.

"I've not forgotten," he answered with an effort, "but the favor you ask is one I cannot conscientiously grant."

She laughed disagreeably.

"Since when has your conscience become a factor in your affairs?"

He could have throttled her for her insolence, but she gave him no chance to reply.

"Supposing I insist?"

"Insist?" Was she threatening him?

She answered coldly--