"Of course it won't do to say that. There _must_ be social
differences. Don't you think so?"
"I don't know," said Dr. Morrell. "I never thought of it in that light
before. It's a very curious question." He asked, brightening gaily after a
moment of sober pause, "Is that the whole trouble?"
"Isn't it enough?"
"No; I don't think it is. Why didn't you tell him that you didn't want any
gratitude?".
"Not _want_ any?" she demanded.
"Oh!" said Dr. Morrell, "I didn't know but you thought it was enough to
_give."_ Annie believed that he was making fun of her, and she tried to make her
resentful silence dignified; but she only answered sadly: "No; it isn't
enough for me. Besides, he made me see that you can't give sympathy where
you can't receive it."
"Well, that _is_ bad," said the doctor, and he laughed again. "Excuse
me," he added. "I see the point. But why don't you forget it?"
"Forget it!"
"Yes. If you can't help it, why need you worry about it?"
She gave a kind of gasp of astonishment. "Do you really think that would be
right?" She edged a little away from Dr. Morrell, as if with distrust.
"Well, no; I can't say that I do," he returned thoughtfully, without
seeming to have noticed her withdrawal. "I don't suppose I was looking at
the moral side. It's rather out of my way to do that. If a physician let
himself get into the habit of doing that, he might regard nine-tenths of
the diseases he has to treat as just penalties, and decline to interfere."
She fancied that he was amused again, rather than deeply concerned, and she
determined to make him own his personal complicity in the matter if she
could. "Then you _do_ feel sympathy with your patients? You find it
necessary to do so?"
The doctor thought a moment. "I take an interest in their diseases."
"But you want them to get well?"
"Oh, certainly. I'm bound to do all I can for them as a physician."
"Nothing more?"
"Yes; I'm sorry for them--for their families, if it seems to be going badly
with them."
"And--and as--as--Don't you care at all for your work as a part of what
every one ought to do for others--as humanity, philan--" She stopped the
offensive word.