Keenness saved him from being fooled by his self-consciousness.
Kennard impressed upon Kit an example of impartial thoroughness. Soon there was a tie of sympathy between them, and Kit, staying to the very last, and after the senior students had drifted away, would sit on the chair next to the surgeon and be allowed to enter into a more intimate fellowship.
They talked.
One particular talk they had stuck in Kit's memory. Kennard had been examining a pretty French girl who had come with a certain hideous condition, and the blemishes had shocked Kit.
"It's rather damnable, sir."
"It's life, a side of life. There's something to avoid, Sorrell."
Kit was frowning.
"It's a question of stopping it, sir."
"Exactly."
"The Socialists"
Kennard gave him a quick shrewd smile.
"Environment,—O—yes! And education! But turning life into an orderly cabbage patch won't cure appetites. It might make it worse. Life drives us"
"Well,—what would you do, sir?"
"Try to see that half the babies are not born. You don't let a garden get overcrowded with a lot of weedy rubbish."
"But the Socialist cabbage-patch?"
"We are not—all—cabbages, Sorrell. The world wants cleaning and replanting,—but the drive of life is different in different plants. You have to allow for that. I would halve the population, and try to see that the half that remained had a better chance."
"But what about industry,—labour?"
"Ah,—industry! It may be a question of choosing between trade—and health—the higher health. Waste products. We manage to use them—sometimes,—but the waste is always ahead of the use. Your feet clogged with the mud of the world's haste and greed and foolishness. Stick to the job."
But his contact with the sick and the diseased and the polluted bred in Kit a seriousness that took unto itself a
