But she lay awake telling off the reasons she would put before
him in the morning; and in the dark allowed herself a tender, tickled
little smile at his expense.
"What a man he is for loading himself up with the wrong sort of people!"
she reflected. "And then afterwards, he gets tired of them, and
impatient with them--as is only natural."
At breakfast she came back on the subject herself. In her opinion, he
ought to think the matter over very carefully. Not another doctor on
Ballarat had an assistant; and his patients would be sure to resent the
novelty. Those who sent for Dr. Mahony would not thank you to be handed
over to "goodness knows who."
"Besides, Richard, as things are now, the money wouldn't really be
enough, would it? And just as we have begun to be a little easy
ourselves--I'm afraid you'd miss many comforts you have got used to
again, dear," she wound up, with a mental glance at the fine linen and
smooth service Richard loved.
Yes, that was true, admitted Mahony with a sigh; and being this morning
in a stale mood, he forthwith knocked flat the card-house it had amused
him to build. Himself he had only half believed in it; or believed so
long as he refrained from going into prosaic details. There was work for
two and money for one--that was the crux of the matter. Successful as
the practice was, it still did not throw off a thousand a year. Bad
debts ran to a couple of hundred annually; and their improved style of
living--the expenses of house and garden, of horses and vehicles, the
men-servants, the open house they had to keep--swallowed every penny of
the rest.
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