GEORGE. I have told you over and over again that I only did what was right. Just consider; how could I marry when the doctor told me I had traces of consumption?
HENRIETTE. Your doctor is a donkey. As if you looked like a consumptive!
GEORGE. Generally speaking, doctors are a bit that way, I grant.
HENRIETTE. And you actually wanted to wait three or four years.
GEORGE. Yes; to be quite certain I had nothing wrong with my lungs.
HENRIETTE. You call me innocent, me! And here were you, just because a doctor—
GEORGE. But you know it seems that I really had the beginning of some bronchial trouble. I used to feel something when I breathed rather hard—like that, only a little harder. There, that’s it. There was a sort of heaviness each side of my chest.
HENRIETTE. It wasn’t anything to put off our marriage for.
GEORGE [getting up] Yes, yes; I assure you I was right. I should have been wrong to expose you to the chance of having a consumptive husband. No; I’m not at all sorry we waited. Still, those specialists—I can afford to laugh at them now. If I knew someone now who was ill, I should tell him: ‘My dear chap, those bigwigs at forty francs a consultation—well, just don’t you consult them, you know!’
HENRIETTE. That one wanted four years to cure you!