quick at reading THE PASSING EMOTION. They can judge with astounding
correctness from a shadow on one's face, a catch in one's breath, a
movement of one's hands, how their words or deeds are affecting us. We
cannot conceal our feelings from them. But underlying character they
do not judge so well as fleeting expression. Not what Mrs. Jones IS in
herself, but what Mrs. Jones is now thinking and feeling--there lies
their great success as psychologists. Most men, on the contrary, guide
their life by definite FACTS--by signs, by symptoms, by observed data.
Medicine itself is built upon a collection of such reasoned facts.
But this woman, Nurse Wade, to a certain extent, stands intermediate
mentally between the two sexes. She recognises TEMPERAMENT--the fixed
form of character, and what it is likely to do--in a degree which I have
never seen equalled elsewhere. To that extent, and within proper limits
of supervision, I acknowledge her faculty as a valuable adjunct to a
scientific practitioner."

Still, though Sebastian started with a predisposition in favour of
Hilda Wade--a pretty girl appeals to most of us--I could see from the
beginning that Hilda Wade was by no means enthusiastic for Sebastian,
like the rest of the hospital:

"He is extraordinarily able," she would say, when I gushed to her about
our Master; but that was the most I could ever extort from her in the
way of praise. Though she admitted intellectually Sebastian's gigantic
mind, she would never commit herself to anything that sounded like
personal admiration. To call him "the prince of physiologists" did
not satisfy me on that head. I wanted her to exclaim, "I adore him! I
worship him! He is glorious, wonderful!"

I was also aware from an early date that, in an unobtrusive way, Hilda