s your secret?

RIDGEON. I have no secret: I am not a quack.

MRS DUBEDAT. I beg your pardon: I didnt mean to say anything wrong. I
dont understand how to speak to you. Oh, pray dont be offended.

RIDGEON [again a little ashamed] There! there! never mind. [He relaxes
and sits down]. After all, I'm talking nonsense: I daresay I AM a quack,
a quack with a qualification. But my discovery is not patented.

MRS DUBEDAT. Then can any doctor cure my husband? Oh, why dont they do
it? I have tried so many: I have spent so much. If only you would give
me the name of another doctor.

RIDGEON. Every man in this street is a doctor. But outside myself and
the handful of men I am training at St Anne's, there is nobody as yet
who has mastered the opsonin treatment. And we are full up? I'm sorry;
but that is all I can say. [Rising] Good morning.

MRS DUBEDAT [suddenly and desperately taking some drawings from her
portfolio] Doctor: look at these. You understand drawings: you have good
ones in your waiting-room. Look at them. They are his work.

RIDGEON. It's no use my looking. [He looks, all the same] Hallo! [He
takes one to the window and studies it]. Yes: this is the real thing.
Yes, yes. [He looks at another and returns to her]. These are very
clever. Theyre unfinished, arnt they?

MRS DUBEDAT. He gets tired so soon. But you see, dont you, what a genius
he is? You see that he is worth saving. Oh, doctor, I married him just
to help him to begin: I had money enough to tide him over the hard years
at the beginning--to enable him to follow his inspiration until his
genius was recognized. And I was useful to him as a model: his drawings
of me sold quite quickly.

RIDGEON. Have you got one?

MRS DUBEDAT [producing another] Only this one. It was the first.

RIDGEON [devouring it with his eyes] Thats a wonderful drawing. Why is
it called Jennifer?

MRS DUBEDAT. My name is Jennifer.

RIDGEON. A strange name.

MRS DUBEDAT. Not in Cornwall. I am Cornish. It's only what you call
Guinevere.

RIDGEON [repeating the names with a certain pleasure in them] Guinevere.
Jennifer. [Looking again at the drawing] Yes: it's really a wonderful
drawing. Excuse me; but may I ask is it for sale? I'll buy it.

MRS DUBEDAT. Oh, take it. It's my own: he gave it to me. Take it. Take
them all. Take everything; ask anything; but save him. You can: you
will: you must.

REDPENNY [entering with every sign of alarm] Theyve just telephoned from
the h