“Because I chose to wait.  Have you been all this while at Mrs. Fletcher’s?”

“No, I’m afraid I haven’t.  I stopped to look at the sunset on my way back, and I didn’t think of the time.”

Doctor South did not reply, and the servant brought in some grilled sprats.  Philip ate them with an excellent appetite.  Suddenly Doctor South shot a question at him.

“Why did you look at the sunset?”

Philip answered with his mouth full.

“Because I was happy.”

Doctor South gave him an odd look, and the shadow of a smile flickered across his old, tired face.  They ate the rest of the dinner in silence; but when the maid had given them the port and left the room, the old man leaned back and fixed his sharp eyes on Philip.

“It stung you up a bit when I spoke of your game leg, young fellow?” he said.

“People always do, directly or indirectly, when they get angry with me.”

“I suppose they know it’s your weak point.”

Philip faced him and looked at him steadily.

“Are you very glad to have discovered it?”

The doctor did not answer, but he gave a chuckle of bitter mirth.  They sat for a while staring at one another.  Then Doctor South surprised Philip extremely.

“Why don’t you stay here and I’ll get rid of that damned fool with his mumps?”

“It’s very kind of you, but I hope to get an appointment at the hospital in the autumn.  It’ll help me so much in getting other work later.”

“I’m offering you a partnership,” said Doctor South grumpily.

“Why?” asked Philip, with surprise.

“They seem to like you down here.”

“I didn’t think that was a fact which altogether met with your approval,” Philip said drily.

“D’you suppose that after forty years’ practice I care a twopenny damn whether people prefer my assistant to me?  No, my friend.  There’s no sentiment between my patients and me.  I don’t expect gratitude from them, I expect them to pay my fees.  Well, what d’you say to it?”

Philip made no reply, not because he was thinking over the proposal, but because he was astonished.  It was evidently very unusual for someone to offer a partnership to a newly qualified man; and he realised with wonder that, although nothing would induce him to say so, Doctor South had taken a fancy to him.  He thought how amused the secretary at St. Luke’s would be when he told him.

“The practice brings in about seven hundred a year.  We can reckon out how much your share would be worth, and you can pay me off by degrees.  And when I die you can succeed me.  I think that’s better than knocking about hospitals for two or three years, and then taking assistantships until you can afford to set up for yourself.”

Philip knew it was a chance that most people in his profession would jump at; the profession was over-crowded, and half the men he knew would be thankful to accept the certainty of even so modest a competence as that.