For it was common
medical knowledge out here that, given the distances and the general
lack of conveniences, thirty to forty maternity cases per year were as
much as a practitioner could with comfort take in hand. HIS books for
the past year stood at over a hundred! The nightwork this meant was
unbearable, infants showing a perverse disinclination to enter the world
except under cover of the dark.
His popularity--if such it could be called--with the other sex was
something of a mystery to him. For he had not one manner for the bedside
and another for daily life. He never sought to ingratiate himself with
people, or to wheedle them; still less would he stoop to bully or
intimidate; was always by preference the adviser rather than the
dictator. And men did not greatly care for this arm's-length attitude;
they wrote him down haughty and indifferent, and pinned their faith to a
blunter, homelier manner. But with women it was otherwise; and these
also appreciated the fact that, no matter what their rank in life, their
age or their looks, he met them with the deference he believed due to
their sex. Exceptions there were, of course. Affectation or insincerity
angered him--with the "Zaras" of this world he had scant patience--
while among the women themselves, some few--Ned's wife, for example--
felt resentment at his very appearance, his gestures, his tricks of
speech. But the majority were his staunch partisans; and it was becoming
more and more the custom to engage Dr.
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