should walk
with a spring and be strong and steady as a soldier on the march; but
she is none of these things, can do none of these things. You've got
a thousand things to do, and you do them because you want to do them.
There is something making new life in you all the time, but Mrs.
Mazarine makes no new life as she goes on. Every day is taking something
out of her, and there's nothing being renewed. Sometimes neither good
food nor ozone is enough; and you've got to take care, or you'll lose
Mrs. Mazarine." He could not induce himself to speak of her as "wife."

For a moment the unwholesome mouth seemed to be chewing unpleasant
herbs, and the beady eyes blinked viciously.

"I'm not swallowin' your meaning," Mazarine said at last. "I never
studied Greek. 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. She represented the
triumph of age. He had lived his life; he had buried two wives; he had
had children; he had made money; and yet here, when other men of his
years were thinking of making wills, and eating porridge, and waiting
for the Dark Policeman to come and arrest them for loitering, h