Part 43

He found his patient standing—not sitting, this time—before the fireplace, with a face of gloom. Before he could greet her, she burst out:—

“How long am I to be kept on the grind? I see nobody. I have nothing to amuse me. I’ve had a row with father.” Dr. Strong smiled. “The servants are impertinent.” The smile broadened. “The whole world is hateful!” The doctor’s face was now expanded into a positive grin. “I despise everything and everybody! I’m bored.”

“Passing that over for the moment for something less important,” said Dr. Strong smoothly, “where do you buy your paint?”

“I don’t paint!” retorted the girl hotly.

“Well, your rouge. Your skin-rejuvenator. Your essence of bloom of youth or whatever poetic name you call it by. Let me see the box.” Mutiny shone from the scowling face, but her hand went to her reticule and emerged with a small box. It passed to the physician’s hand and thence to the fire. “I’ll use paint if I want to,” declared the girl. “Undoubtedly. But you’ll use good paint if you use any. Get a theatrical paper, read the ads, and send for the highest grade of grease-paint. I won’t say anything about the vulgarity of the practice because I’m not censoring your manners. I’ll only state that three months from now you won’t want or need paint. Did you get this stuff,” he nodded toward the fireplace whence issued a highly perfumed smoke, “from that address in your deceased symptom-book?”

“Yes.”

“That was the firm which advertised to remove pimples, wasn’t it?”

Miss Ennis shrank. “Pimple is an inexcusable word,” she protested.

“Word? We’re dealing in realities now. And pimples were an inexcusable reality in your case, because they were the blossoms of gluttony, torpor, and self-indulgence.”

He leaned forward and looked closely at her chin. The surface, once blotched and roughened, was now of a smooth and soft translucency. “You once objected to the word ‘sweat,’” he continued. “Well, it has eliminated the more objectionable word ‘pimple’ from your reckoning. And it has done the job better than your blemish-remover—-which leaves scars.”

Her hand went to her temple, where there was a little group of silvery-white patches on the skin. “Can’t you fix that?” she asked anxiously.

“No. Your ‘remover’ was corrosive sublimate. It certainly removed the blemish. It would also have removed your entire face if you had used enough of it. Nothing can restore what the liquid fire has burned away. That’s the penalty you pay for foolish credulousness. Fortunately, it is where it won’t show much.”

Gloom surged back into her face. “It doesn’t make any difference,” she fretted. “I’m still a mess in looks even if I don’t feel so much like one.”

“One half of looks is expression,” stated the doctor didactically. “I don’t like yours. What’s your religion?”

His patient stared. “Why, I’m a Presbyterian, I suppose.”

“Humph! You suppose! It doesn’t seem to have struck in very hard. Any objection to going to a Christian Science church?”

“Christian Science! I thought the regular doctors considered it the worst kind of quackery.”

“The regular doctors,” returned Dr. Strong quickly, “once considered anaesthesia, vaccination, and the germ theory as quackery. We live and learn, like others. There’s plenty of quackery in Christian Science, and also quite a little good. And nowadays we’re learning to accept the good in new dogmas, and discard the bad.”

“And you really wish me to go to the Christian Science church?”

“Why not? You’ll encounter there a few wild fanatics. I’ll trust your hard common sense to guard you against their proselytizing. You’ll also meet a much larger number of sweet, gentle, and cheerful people, with a sweet, helpful, and cheerful philosophy of life. That’ll help to cure you.”

“And what will they cure me of, since you say I have no disease?”

“They’ll cure you of turning your mouth down at the corners instead of up.”

At this, the mouth referred to did, indeed, turn up at the corners, but in no very pleasant wise.

“You think they’ll amuse me?” she inquired contemptuously.

“Oh, as for amusement, I’ve arranged for that. You’re bored. Very well, I expected it. It’s a symptom, and a good one, in its place. I’ll get you a job.”

“Indeed! And if I don’t want a job?”

“No matter what you want. You need it.”

“Settlement work, I suppose.”