![]() He had worked very hard he had won his position by sheer ability (being the son of a shopkeeper) loved his profession made a fine figurehead at ceremonies and spoke well - all of which had by the time he was knighted given him a heavy look, a weary look (the stream of patients being so incessant, the responsibilities and privileges of his profession so onerous), which weariness, together with his grey hairs, increased the extraordinary distinction of his presence and gave him the reputation (of the utmost importance in dealing with nerve cases) not merely of lightning skill, and almost infallible accuracy in diagnosis but of sympathy tact understanding of the human soul. Her ladyship waited with the rugs about her knees an hour or more, leaning back, thinking sometimes of the patient, sometimes, excusably, of the wall of gold, mounting minute by minute while she waited the wall of gold that was mounting between them and all shifts and anxieties (she had borne them bravely they had had their struggles) until she felt wedged on a calm ocean, where only spice winds blow respected, admired, envied, with scarcely anything left to wish for, though she regretted her stoutness large dinner-parties every Thursday night to the profession an occasional bazaar to be opened Royalty greeted too little time, alas, with her husband, whose work grew and grew a boy doing well at Eton she would have liked a daughter too interests she had, however, in plenty child welfare the after-care of the epileptic, and photography, so that if there was a church building, or a church decaying, she bribed the sexton, got the key and took photographs, which were scarcely to be distinguished from the work of professionals, while she waited. For often Sir William would travel sixty miles or more down into the country to visit the rich, the afflicted, who could afford the very large fee which Sir William very properly charged for his advice. ![]() Indeed it was - Sir William Bradshaw’s motor car low, powerful, grey with plain initials’ interlocked on the panel, as if the pomps of heraldry were incongruous, this man being the ghostly helper, the priest of science and, as the motor car was grey, so to match its sober suavity, grey furs, silver grey rugs were heaped in it, to keep her ladyship warm while she waited. Probably, Rezia thought, that was Sir William Bradshaw’s house with the grey motor car in front of it. Twelve was the hour of their appointment. It was precisely twelve o’clock twelve by Big Ben whose stroke was wafted over the northern part of London blent with that of other clocks, mixed in a thin ethereal way with the clouds and wisps of smoke, and died up there among the seagulls - twelve o’clock struck as Clarissa Dalloway laid her green dress on her bed, and the Warren Smiths walked down Harley Street.
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