Kind Are Her Answers by Mary Renault Read Free Book Online

expressed in art by a stranger, detached from its consequences with the finality of death; and suddenly he felt the waste in himself of the power of wonder and delight: he remembered that he was young, and had been planning for himself the achievements of middle age.
    The handkerchief was still in his hand. He put it in his pocket and, picking up the flower-bowl, carried it into the guest room and put it down on the table where, he saw, she had already arranged a mat to keep it from marking the polish.
    He had visits to pay in the afternoon; so it was a little after teatime when he got home. Janet’s visitor had arrived, and they had started tea. Miss Leach greeted him warmly. She was a tall young woman with a pink outdoor skin, teeth that showed when she talked and bright blue eyes shining with a penetrating kind of cheerfulness. She had on expensive tweeds spoiled by a bead necklet and a fancy wool jumper that just missed the colour-tone. Kit felt a little enveloped by her friendliness. She asked him all those questions about his work and interests which are most difficult to answer in general terms; and, when he made some reply which he felt to be particularly dim and unenlightening, received it with eager interest. Janet she left in the background, in the manner which suggests an intimacy too secure for words.
    After tea they talked round the fire. It was a cold day: Kit’s round had been rather draughty and comfortless; and he would have liked to relax with a book and his feet in the fender; but Janet was looking warmed and expanded and, for her sake, he made himself as pleasant as he could. It was best, he found, to let Miss Leach choose her own line; if some one else opened a topic—books for instance, or the news—she would pursue it with a faintly indulgent air, as if it were a kindness she were doing on principle. She had the air of saving up something with which to give children a surprise. After half an hour of it, Kit retired as gracefully as he could into the background, and she and Janet exchanged news about what So-and-So was doing now. Miss Leach’s items were always impalpably pointed, and seemed to be leading up to something undefined.
    Kit excused himself when it was time for his evening surgery. Miss Leach dismissed him with a benevolent smile, as if he had asked whether he might get down now and play with his trains.
    The evening surgery was used chiefly by panel patients who came in on their way from work. He had grown to look forward to this part of the day. He found their directness restful; the hedgings and modesties of the private patients were too much an extension of his life at home. Among the servant girls and errand boys and the old workmen with dirty knowledgeable hands, he could recapture for a little while the satisfactions of hospital life, where now he was only a semi-outsider giving anaesthetics or taking an occasional clinic during some one’s holidays. Sometimes, after a too-guarded day, the mere use by a navvy of some coarse physical term had a kind of nourishment in it.
    There were fewer patients than usual to-night; but after they had gone he spent the best part of an hour in the consulting room, filling in record cards, smoking and reading. His chair was hard, and the place radiator-warmed and a little cheerless; but he scarcely noticed it now. When he went upstairs again, Janet and Peggy were sitting side by side on the sofa, talking in undertones. As he came in he saw Peggy reach over and give her hand a confidential little pat.
    At dinner she told, in a tactfully jocular way, anecdotes to show how sensitive Janet had been at school.
    Kit was expecting a confinement call, and would not have been sorry if his patient had chosen to-night for the event; but the telephone was obstinately silent. About nine o’clock he tried recourse to the gramophone. After the first concerto Miss Leach said, with bright wistfulness, how much she admired people who understood good music. Some