" Lucinda, who had perhaps sniffed timidly at release,
burnt crimson: thank you! she would rather eat rat-bane.--He supposed
they pinched and scraped along as of old--the question of money was
never broached between him and them. Prior to his marriage he had sent
them what he could; but that little was in itself an admission of
failure. They made no inquiries about his mode of life, preferring it to
remain in shadow; enough for them that he had not amassed a fortune. Had
that come to pass, they might have pardoned the rude method of its
making--in fancy he listened to the witty, cutting, self-derisive
words, in which they would have alluded to his success.
Lying back in his chair he thought of them thus, without unkindliness,
even with a dash of humour. That was possible, now that knocking about
the world had rubbed off some of his own corners. In his young days, he,
too, had been hot and bitter. What, however, to another might have
formed the chief crux in their conduct--it was by squandering such
money as there was, his own portion among it, on his scamp of an elder
brother, that they had forced him into the calling they despised--this
had not troubled him greatly. For medicine was the profession on which
his choice would anyhow have fallen. And to-night the book that lay
before him had infected him with the old enthusiasm. He re-lived those
days when a skilfully handled case of PLACENTA PREVIA, or a successful
delivery in the fourth position, had meant more to him than the Charge
of the Light Brigade.
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