He seemed very pleased to see me, and I was _delighted_ to see him, and extended my hand to him in cordial greeting.
I know Aunt Gwendolin would object to her niece shaking hands with the chauffeur--it was the medical man I shook hands with.
I stayed out there as long as I dared, and we had a lovely stroll along the beach in the moonlight, the waves whispering at our feet as we walked and talked. Chauffeur Graham said that it always seemed to him that the waves were coming from the many far-off lands with their incessant pleadings that we carry our enlightenment and advantages to the suffering places of the earth.
That was the medical man speaking in him. He must be noble or he would never hear those voices in the waves.
How I wish it were proper for me to give him some of the money I do not know what to do with, so that he could go on with his studies and not need to work between times to earn a pittance.
Grandmother says she is going to engage him again in the autumn, when we all return to the city; she knows him now, and feels safe in his hands, he is so careful.
"It is such a nuisance to have a man that you cannot command at any hour of the day--or night," said Aunt Gwendolin. "Make him understand, if you engage him again, that all his time belongs to _us_. These gentlemen chauffeurs who are straining after a university education are unendurable!"
"He shall have whatever time he wants for his studies or examinations. It is the least I can do to show my sympathy with his life work," returned my grandmother.
I had another stroll this evening on the beach with Chauffeur Graham--while Aunt Gwendolin was getting ready for the dance--and he told me something.
"When I am through with my medical course," he said, "I intend to go to China to practise what I have learned."
I stopped suddenly in my walk and faced him. "Why are you going to China?" I demanded.
It makes me indignant to have this nation, an infant in years, patronising my hoary-headed Empire!
"If a man is going to do his duty by the world," he returned, "he will go where his work is most needed. They have no native medical school in China.
"They are a great people," he added after a short pause, "likely to be in the van of the world's march in the ages to come; and I want to have a hand in getting them ready. Napoleon said, 'When China moves she will move the world.' All the broken legs will be set in this country whether I am here to set them or not; I want to go where they will not be set unless I do it."