“Doesn’t any husband want his wife to live!” he answered sullenly. “But I want to know what ails her. What medicine you going to give her?”
“I don’t know,” the Young Doctor replied meditatively. “When she is quite rid of this attack, I’ll examine her again and let you know.”
Suddenly there shot into the greenish old eyes a reddish look of rage; jealousy, horrible, gruesome jealousy, took possession of Joel Mazarine. This young man to come in and go out of his wife’s bedroom, to—Why weren’t there women doctors? He would get one over from the Coast, or from Winnipeg, or else there was old Doctor Gensing, in Askatoon—who was seventy-five at least. He would call him in and get rid of this offensive young pill-maker.
“I don’t believe there’s anything the matter with her,” he declared stubbornly. “She’s been healthy as a woman can be, living this life here. What’s her disease? I’ve asked you. What is it?”
The other laid a hand on himself, and in the colourless voice of the expert, said: “Old age—that’s her trouble, so far as I can see.”
He paused, foreseeing the ferocious look which swept into the repulsive face, and the clenching of the big hands. Then in a soothing, reflective kind of voice he added:
“Senile decay—you know all about that. Well, now, it happens sometimes—not often, but it does happen—that a very young person for some cause or another suffers from senile decay. Some terrible leakage of youth occurs. It has been cured, though, and I’ve cured one or two cases myself.”
He was almost prevaricating—but in a good cause. “Mrs. Mazarine’s is a case which can be cured, I think,” he continued. “As you’ve remarked, Mr. Mazarine,”—his voice was now persuasive,—“here is fine air, and a good, comfortable home—”
Suddenly he broke off, and as though in innocent inquiry said: “Now, has she too much to do? Has she sufficient help in the house for one so young?”
“She doesn’t do more than’s good for her,” answered the old man, “and there’s the half-breed hired critter—you’ve seen her—and Li Choo, a Chinaman, too. That ought to be enough,” he added scornfully.