The Doctor Takes a Wife by Elizabeth Seifert Read Free Book Online Page B

of serving humanity, Scoles. But the individual, as such, no longer seems important to you. You ’ re ready to save all women from the threat of post-partum blood clots, and that ’ s a wonderful ideal.
    “But, in the meantime, you will let somebody else do your work here in the hospital and clinic. Take that woman in the green suit out there in the hall. I presume she ’ s come in for a routine examination and check-up. In the course of that examination, she ’ d normally pass under your hands and eyes and skill, and you could either decide she was in good condit i on and ready to carry on with her usual duties as wife and mother, or you could discover the little growth on her cervix which needs removal by a surgeon, analysis in our pathology lab—and so on. You ’ d do that operation skillfully, catching the growth at an early stage, perhaps saving her life.
    “Now, I ’ ll grant that she ’ s only one woman. I don ’ t know her name, nor how much she means to society—”
    “Dr. Chappell—”
    The Old Man got to his feet. “Go on and do your research,” he urged. “Save humanity! I think you should. You ’ re no good to us, and we wouldn ’ t have you wasting your time around here, Dr. Scoles! Good-bye, sir!”
    He stalked out, and closed the hall door behind him. Even I was shocked at the bitterness of his attack on Phil. And Phil was angry—so angry that I thought for a minute he ’ d stay just to prove the Boss wrong.
    I don ’ t think the Old Man had jumped him for that purpose, though. Dr. Chappell was sold on his clinic. He ’ d built it on more ideals, longer maintained, than we younger men knew about. What he had said made me glimpse the long-term integrity of the man and his project. I hoped Phil would see it, too.
    And maybe he did.
    But just the same, he packed up his gear, and left Berilo at the end of that month.

 
    CHAPTER 5
    I didn ’ t do any more arguing with Phil before he left. I ’ d stated my position, and I had no wish to lose him as a friend My doubts about his feelings for Min I simply buried. I kept busy at the Clinic, and he attended to his own affairs. We didn ’ t see a lot of each other. Perhaps, while still in Berilo, he entertained some gnawing doubts. One usually does when making a radical change.
    But he had a lot to do, and I think he was on the train, looking out of the window at Wyoming, before he faced active regret over his decision. His broken ribs and the little injury to his lung made us advise against flying, and the train trip gave him thirty-six hours in which to think, alone, unhampered by disagreement or agreement.
    He sat there looking out at the beautiful, and bleak, panorama of mountain and desert, at the streaks of snow still to be seen, at the ducks on the green mirror of a lake, at all the prime colors of that country—red, blue and yellow—and he thought of all the things he had left behind in Idaho. Jonquils in bloom, the three-lined streets, the towering spruces ...
    And his friends. The hospital. Some cases he ’ d been interested in. He should have contacted those women, and reassured them, taken some pains to establish their confidence in the doctors who would now look lifter them. He had a half-dozen post-operatives he should have eased off. He made notes on a pad for letters which he should—and would—write back to Forrestal and Putnam.
    His case records were clear and exact, but—there was that psychosomatic angle to Annis Nevin ’ s approaching delivery. It should be normal in all respects, but her mother had had a heart condition and had died in childbirth when Annis was fourteen. She was sure that she too risked dea th ; she believed in Phil ’ s ability to ease her through by surgery, if necessary—Oh, he should have called Annis in for examination, and persuaded her that the other men on the staff were equally capable of taking care of her!
    He spent some minutes thinking about me. He hoped Whitley understood that some of