"You are not a surgeon."
"Hell! I can plaster 'em up somehow."
Symes stared. His expression quickly brought her to a realization of the
mistake into which her angry vehemence had led her and she colored to
the roots of her hair.
"Your confidence is reassuring," he said dryly at the end of an
uncomfortable pause. "But tell me,"--her callousness aroused his
curiosity--"would you, admittedly without experience or practical
surgical knowledge, be willing to shoulder the responsibilities which
would come to you in such a position?"
"I told you," she answered obstinately, "I can fix 'em up somehow; I can
do the trick and get away with it. You needn't be afraid of _me_."
"What _I'm_ afraid of isn't the question; but haven't you any feeling of
moral responsibility when it comes to tinkering and experimenting with
the lives and limbs of workingmen who have families dependent upon
them?"
"What's the use of worryin' over what hasn't happened?" she asked
evasively. "I'll do the best I can."
"But supposing 'the best you can' isn't enough? Supposing through
inexperience or ignorance you blunder, unmistakably, palpably blunder,
what then?"
"Well," she shrugged her shoulder, "I wouldn't be the first."
"But," he suggested ironically, "a victim has redress."
She snorted.
"Not a doctor's victim. Did you ever hear of a patient winnin' a case
against a doctor? Did you ever hear of a successful malpractice suit?"
He considered.
"I can't say that I've known the sort of doctors who figure in
malpractice suits, but since I think of it I don't believe I ever read
or heard of one who ever did."
"And you won't," she said tersely.
"Why not? The rest of the world must pay for the mistakes of
incompetency."
"'The ethics of the profession,'" she quoted mockingly. "We protect each
other. The last thing a doctor wants to do, or will do, is to testify
against a fellow practitioner. He may despise him in his heart but he'll
protect him on the witness stand. Besides, we're allowed a certain
percentage of mistakes; the best are not infallible."
"That's true; but supposing," he persisted, "that the mistake to a
competent surgeon was so obviously the result of ignorance that it could
not be gotten around, would he still protect you?"
"Nine times in ten he would," she replied; "at least he'd be silent."
"And allow you to go on experimenting?"
He saw that she hesitated. She was thinking that she need not tell him
she had known such a one.
"Of course there are high-brows who set the standards for themselves and
others pretty high, and if I acted, or failed to act, in violation of
all recognized methods of procedure, and with fatal results, they
_might_ make me trouble. But you can bet," she finished with a grin,
"the ethics of the profession have saved many a poor quack's hide."
"Quack?"
"Oh, they may have diplomas. A diploma doesn't mean so much in these
days of cheap medical colleges where they grind 'em out by the hundreds;
you need only know where to go and have the price."
"This is--illuminating." Symes wondered at her candor. She seemed very
sure of her position with him, he thought.
"What difference does it make where your diploma's from to jays like
these?" She waved her arm at Crowheart. "A little horse sense, a bold
front, a hypodermic needle, and a few pills will put you a long way on
your road among this class of people. I'm talkin' pretty free to an
outsider, but," she looked at him significantly, "I know we can trust
each other."
The implication irritated him, but he ignored it for the present.
"Do you mean to tell me," he demanded, "that there are medical schools
where you can _buy_ a diploma? Where _anybody_ can get through?"
She laughed at his amazement.
"A quiz-compend and a good memory will put a farm-hand or a sheep-herder
through if he can read and write; he doesn't have to have a High School
education." She inquired jocularly, appearing to find enjoyment in
shocking him: "You've seen my hated rival, haven't you--Lamb, the new
M.D. that pulled in here the other day? His wife looks like a horse with
a straw bonnet on and he ought to be jailed on sight if there's anything
in Lombroso's theories. Have you noticed him?"
Symes nodded.
"He laid brick until he was thirty-five," she added nonchalantly. "I've
thought some of taking him in with me on this contract, for some men,
working men especially, are devilish prejudiced against women doctors."
Symes's eyes narrowed.
"Why share the--spoils?"
"It's a good thing to have somebody like him to slough the blame on in
case of trouble."
"By gad!"--the exclamation burst from him involuntarily--"but you're a
cold-blooded proposition."
She construed this as a compliment.
"Merely business foresight, my dear Mr. Symes," she smirked
complacently. "Some fool, you know, might think he could get a judgment
if he didn't like the way we handled him."
"And you're sure he couldn't?"
"Lord!--no. Not out here." Her leg slipped over her knee and her foot
slumped to the floor. She slid lower in the chair, until her head rested
on the back, her sprawling legs outstretched, her fingers clasped across
her starched waistcoat, upon her face an expression of humorous disdain.
"Let me tell you a story to illustrate what you can do and get away with
it--to ease your mind if you're afraid of gettin' into trouble on my
account. A friend of mine who had a diploma from my school came out West
to practise and she had a case of a fellow with a slashed wrist--the
tendons were plumb severed. She didn't know how to draw 'em together, so
she just sewed up the outside skin. They shrunk, and he lost the use of
his hand. Then he goes back East for treatment and comes home full of
talk about damage suits and that sort of thing. Well, sir, she just
bluffed him down. Told him she had fixed 'em all right, but when he was
drunk he had torn the tendons loose and was tryin' to lay the blame on
her. She made her bluff stick, too. Funny, wasn't it?"
"Excruciating," said Symes.
She seemed strangely indifferent to his sarcasm--to his opinion.
"I can promise you," she urged, "that I'll be equal to any emergency."
"I've no doubt of it," he returned.
Symes smoked hard; he was thinking, not of the contract which he
intended to peremptorily refuse, but how best, in what words to tell
this woman that now more than ever he wished the intimacy between her
and his wife to end.