. . come, love, do try to grasp what I'm after; it
means so much to me." And he held out his hand to her, to beseech her.
Unhesitatingly she laid hers in it. "I am trying, Richard, though you
mayn't believe it. I always do. And even if I sometimes can't manage it
--well, you know, dear, you generally get your own way in the end. Think
of the house. I'm still not clear why you altered it. I liked it much
better as it was. But I didn't make any fuss, did I?--though I should
have, if I'd thought we were only to occupy it for a single year after.
--Still, that was a trifle compared with what you want to do now. Though
I lived to a hundred I should never be able to approve of this. And you
don't know how hard it is to consent to a thing one disapproves of. You
couldn't do it yourself. Oh, what WAS the use, Richard, of toiling as
you have, if now, just when you can afford to charge higher fees and the
practice is beginning to bring in money--"
Mahony let her hand drop, even giving it a slight push from him, and
turned to pace the floor anew. "Oh, money, money, money! I'm sick of the
very sound of the word. But you talk as if nothing else mattered. Can't
you for once, wife, see through the letter of the thing to the spirit
behind? I admit the practice HAS brought in a tidy income of late; but
as for the rest of the splendours, they exist, my dear, only in your
imagination. If you ask me, I say I lead a dog's life--why, even a
navvy works only for a fixed number of hours per diem! My days have
neither beginning nor end.
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