In five minutes he was no longer a busy
professional man, but a gentleman of leisure, with hands cleaner than
those of any fastidious clubman, and clothes which carried no hint of
past usage in other places less chaste than his wife's private
living-rooms.
"Now I'm ready for you," he announced, returning. "And I'll be hanged if
I'll see another interloper to-night. A man has some rights, if he is a
doctor. Morgan, up the street there, is the new man in town, and he has a
display of electric lights in front of his office which fairly yells
'come here!' Let 'em go there! I stay here."
He took his wife in his arms and kissed her hungrily, then stood holding
her close, his cheek against her hair, in absolute contentment. He seemed
to see nothing of the new quarters, though he was now just outside the
living-room door, in the hall which ran between the two parts of the
house. Presently she drew him into the room.
"Look about you," said she. "Have you no curiosity?"
"Not much, while I have you. Still--by George! Well!"
He stood staring about him, his eyes wide open enough now. From one
detail to another his quick, keen-eyed glance roved, lingering an instant
on certain points where artful touches of colour relieved the more
subdued general tone of the furnishings. The room suggested, above all
things, quiet and repose, yet there was a soft and mellow cheer about
it which made it anything but sombre.
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