* * * * *

II

Considering that he was well on the way to being a fashionable physician, Dr. Veiga arrived with surprising promptitude.  Mr. Prohack wondered what hold Eve had upon him and how she had acquired it.  He was prejudiced against the fellow before he came into the bedroom, simply because Eve, on hearing the noise of a car and a doorbell, had hurried downstairs, and a considerable interval had elapsed between the doctor’s entrance into the house and his appearance at the bedside.  Mr. Prohack guessed easily that those two had been plotting against him.  Strange how Eve could be passionately loyal and basely deceitful simultaneously!  The two-faced creature led the doctor forward with a candid smile that partook equally of the smile of a guardian angel and the smile of a cherub.  She was an unparalleled comedian.

Dr. Veiga was fattish and rather shabby; about sixty years of age.  He spoke perfectly correct English with a marked foreign accent.  His demeanour was bland, slightly familiar, philosophical and sympathetic.  Dr. Plott’s eyes would have said:  “This is my thirteenth visit this morning, and I’ve eighteen more to do, and it’s all very tedious.  Why do you people let yourselves get ill—­if it’s a fact that you really are ill?  I don’t think you are, but I’ll see.”  Dr. Veiga’s eyes said:  “How interesting your case is!  You’ve had no luck this time.  We must make the best of things; but also we must face the truth.  God knows I don’t want to boast, but I expect I can put you right, with the help of your own strong commonsense.”

Mr. Prohack, a connoisseur in human nature, noted the significances of the Veiga glance, but he suspected that there might also be something histrionic in it.  Dr. Veiga examined heart, pulse, tongue.  He tapped the torso.  He asked many questions.  Then he took an instrument out of a leather case which he carried, and fastened a strap round Mr. Prohack’s forearm and attached it to the instrument, and presently Mr. Prohack could feel the strong pulsations of the blood current in his arm.

“Dear, dear!” said Dr. Veiga. “175.  Blood pressure too high.  Much too high!  Must get that down.”

Eve looked as though the end of the world had been announced, and even Mr. Prohack had qualms.  Ten minutes earlier Mr. Prohack had been a strong, healthy man a trifle unwell in a bedroom.  He was suddenly transformed into a patient in a nursing-home.

“A little catarrh,” said Dr. Veiga.

“I’ve got no catarrh,” said Mr. Prohack, with conviction.

“Yes, yes.  Catarrh of the stomach.  Probably had it for years.  The duodenum is obstructed.  A little accident that easily happens.”

He addressed himself as it were privately to Mrs. Prohack.  “The duodenum is no thicker than that.”  He indicated the pencil with which he was already writing in a pocket-book.  “We’ll get it right.”