king.

"I don't know," he answered, trying to make his voice even, "Why?"

"She lives in the house with my one patient," explained Ralph; "up on
the hill, you know. She's a frail, ghostly little woman in black, and
she always wears a thick white veil."

"That's her privilege, isn't it?" queried Anthony Dexter. He had
gained control of himself, now, and spoke almost as usual.

"Of course I didn't ask any questions," continued Ralph, thoughtfully,
"but, obviously, the only reason for her wearing it is some terrible
disfigurement. So much is surgically possible in these days that I
thought something might be done for her. Has she never consulted you
about it, Father?"

The man laughed--a hollow, mirthless laugh. "No," he said; "she
hasn't." Then he laughed once more--in a way that jarred upon his son.

Ralph paced back and forth across the room, his hands in his pockets.
"Father," he began, at length, "it may be because I'm young, but I hold
before me, very strongly, the ideals of our profession. It seems a
very beautiful and wonderful life that is opening before me--always to
help, to give, to heal. I--I feel as though I had been dedicated to
some sacred calling--some lifelong service. And service means
brotherhood."

"You'll get over that," returned Anthony Dexter, shortly, yet not
without a certain secret admiration. "When you've had to engage a
lawyer to collect your modest wages for your uplifting work, the healed
not being sufficiently grateful to pay the healer, and when you've gone
ten miles in the dead of Winter, at midnight, to take a pin out of a
squalling infant's back, why, you may change your mind."

"If the healed aren't grateful," observed Ralph, thoughtfully, "it must
be in some way my fault, or else they haven't fully understood. And
I'd go ten miles to take a pin out of a baby's back--yes, I'm sure I
would."

Anthony Dexter's face softened, almost imperceptibly. "It's youth," he
said, "and youth is a fault we all get over soon enough, Heaven knows.
When you're forty, you'll see that the whole thing is a matter of
business and that, in the last analysis, we're working against Nature's
laws. We endeavour to prolong the lives of the unfit, when only the
fittest should survive."

"That makes me think of something else," continued Ralph, in a low
tone. "Yesterday, I canvassed the township to get a cat for
Araminta--the poor child never had a kitten. Nobody would let me have
one til