If a woman has a disease, there it is, and you
can deal with it or not; but if she hasn't no disease, then it's
chicanyery--chicanyery. Doctors talk a lot of gibberish these here days.
What I want to know is, has my wife got a disease? I haven't seen any
signs. Is it Bright's, or cancer, or the lungs, or the liver, or the
kidneys, or the heart, or what's its name?"
The Young Doctor had an impulse to flay the heathen, but for the
girl-wife's sake he forbore.
"I don't think it is any of those troubles," he replied smoothly. "She
needs a thorough examination. But one thing is clear: she is wasting; she
is losing ground instead of going ahead. There's a malignant influence
working. She's standing still, and to stand still in youth is fatal. I
can imagine you don't want to lose her, eh?"
The Young Doctor's gray-blue eyes endeavoured to hold the blinking beads
under the shaggy eyebrows long enough to get control of a mind which had
the cunning and cruelty of an animal. He succeeded.
The old man would a thousand times rather his wife lived than died. In
the first place, to lose her was to sacrifice that which he had paid for
dearly--a mortgage of ten thousand dollars torn up. Louise Mazarine
represented that to him first-ten thousand dollars. Secondly, she was
worth it in every way. He had what hosts of others would be glad to
have--men younger and better looking than himself.
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