'Miss Pillico, I sincerely sympathise with you in the battle you are fighting against ignorance and stupidity. The Woman-Movement, in all its departments, has my heartfelt admiration and good wishes!' His heavenly blue eyes became irresistible as this expression of generous feeling escaped him.
Sophia was too proud and too grateful to be able to reply in words. She rewarded the friend of the Women by a look -- and turned with a sigh to business and Sir John.
'May I try once more before I write my prescription?' she asked. 'No, my dear sir, your back this time. Lean well forward -- so -- and now draw a long breath.' Her pretty hand grasped his shoulder, and her little rosy ear pressed (medically pressed) Sir John's broad back.
At this interesting moment the library door opened. Lady Dowager appeared -- and paused indignantly on the threshold. Otto advanced to salute his mother. Her ladyship waved him back with one hand, and pointed to the Doctor and the patient with the other. Sir John visibly trembled. Sophia kept her ear at his back as composedly as if nothing had happened.
'Look at her!' said Lady Dowager, addressing Otto in the muffled monotonous tones peculiar to the deaf. 'Hugging my husband before my face -- and he seventy-four years old, last birthday. You unnatural hussy, let go of him. You a doctor indeed? I know what you are. Fie! fie!'
'My dear mother!'
'I can't hear you, Otto.'
'My dear mother!'
'Yes, yes; I'll kiss you directly. Look at that old fool, your step-father! He a knight; he an alderman? Ha! ha! a nasty, mangy, rusty old Tom-cat. I won't live with him any longer. You're a witness, Otto -- you see what's going on in that chair -- I'll have a divorce. Ha! look at her hair,' said Lady Dowager, as Sir John's physician quietly lifted her head from Sir John's back -- 'look at her hair, all rumpled with her horrid passions. I blush for my sex. Fie, Miss Pillico -- fie!'
Sophia sat down at the desk, and wrote her prescription. 'Two tablespoonfuls, Sir John, by measure glass, three times in the twenty-four hours. Your lungs are as sound as mine. Suppressed gout -- that's what is the matter with you -- suppressed gout.'
She put on her bonnet (laid aside in the interests of auscultation), and held out her hand to Otto, with modest frankness. 'A friend to my cause, Mr Fitzmark, is my friend. Your excellent mother,' she continued, encountering the furious eyes of Lady Dowager with a little pleasant smile, 'is naturally prejudiced against me. Early education -- on the narrow stand-point of fifty years since -- has much to answer for. I am sorry to have made this excellent lady angry; and I heartily forgive the heard words she has said to me. On the day after to-morrow, Sir John, I will look in, and see what my prescription has done for you. Thank you, Mr Fitzmark, I have no carriage to call; I am not rich enough to keep a carriage. Besides, my next visit is only next door. Ah, you know the Skirtons? The daughter is indeed a sweet girl. And the dear old father,' Miss Pillico added, demurely announcing the medical conquest of another elderly gentleman, 'is my patient. Neuralgia, ignorantly treated as pure rheumatism. Good morning, my lady.'
She bowed respectfully to the formidable enemy of the Rights of Women -- posted at the doorway, and following her with glaring eyes as she glided out.
'Ha! she's going to the other old fool now,' said Lady Dowager. 'Susannah and the Elders! Do you hear, Miss Pillico? I call you Susannah and the Elders!' She turned to her guilty husband (rising to retreat), with a look which threw him back into his chair. 'Now, Sir John!'
Otto was too wise to remain in the room. He slipped into the garden.
After taking a turn or two, reflection convinced him that it was his duty to pay a visit next door. He had an opportunity of comparing two different orders of beauty, as represented by Sophia and Salome, which it would be injudicious on his part to neglect. A man of his tastes would be naturally interested in comparing the two girls together. At the same time, he had not ceased to feel the attraction that had lured him back to London: he was true to his young lady. When he entered Mr Skirton's house, it was with loyal conviction that Salome's superiority would be proved by comparison.
VI In ten day's time events had made a great advance. Miss Pillico's patients felt the powerful influence of Miss Pillico treatment. Sir John's improved health bore witness to the capacity of his new doctor; Mr Skirton was well enough to give a small musical party at his house; Mr Otto Fitzmark, false to Mrs Wholebrook and Hydropathy, was entered triumphantly on Miss Pillico's sick list. Last, but by no means least, Lady Dowager had anticipated her divorce by retiring to the seaside.
The case of Mr Fitzmark was not sufficiently formidable, in the opinion of his new physician, to seclude him from the pleasures of Society. He was allowed to accept an invitation to Mr and Mrs Skirton's musical entertainment -- and, by a happy combination of circumstances, he and his medical adviser entered the drawing-room together.