'I assure you that you're misinformed, Trevose,' Haileybury said hastily. 'I admit there was some hesitation…' He stopped. Under the circumstances, it seemed best not to recall the past. 'Anyway, you'll shortly have your chance to join the civilian Emergency Medical Service. I thought that something really should be done about you.'

The condescension grated on Graham, but he said nothing. He was adjusting himself to being a nonentity, while Haileybury was now one of the nation's elite, as you could tell from a glance at his clothes.

'But I have something better to offer.'

Graham looked up.

'I have never made a secret of my disagreement with you on many things, Trevose, personal and professional.'

'No, you haven't,' Graham concurred.

Haileybury had passed his civilian years between the wars with a modesty indistinguishable from drabness, his bachelor home in Richmond as plain as his sister's cooking, his few amusements harmless to the point of boredom. Where Graham saw plastic surgery as an exciting art in the most rewarding medium of all, human flesh and blood, to Haileybury it was a science, the calculated repair of injuries and defects rather than interference with the endowments of Nature. He would have been almost as reluctant to reshape an actress's nose as to perform her abortion.

'Neither have I made a secret of my admiration for your workmanship,' Haileybury went on. 'Your surgery on burns at Blackfriars called for far wider recognition.'

'I found it a very interesting branch of plastics.'

'I supposed you didn't publish it because you found the surgery of pretty women even more interesting.'

"That's unfair. It was simply because I hadn't the time.'

'Forgive me. Perhaps it's not the first occasion I've misconstrued your motives.'

'Misconstrued?' Graham smiled. 'Are you being honest with yourself?'