“What can a doctor do for a patient who holds back essential facts?” asked he. “Nothing. How can I believe what you say?”
“I don’t know,” replied the other. “But I just ask you to. I ask you to believe I’m changed. I’ve had a shock that has altered my whole nature. I’m not the same man who talked to you the day before yesterday.”
Collins looked at him curiously.
“You have altered,” said he, “your voice is different, somehow, too. I am not going to ask you what has brought about this change in your views. I only trust it may be so—and permanent.”
“Bedrock,” said Jones. “I’m going to begin right now. I’m going to let that caravan—”
“Caravan!”
“The Carlton House place, your idea is good, will you help me through with it? I don’t know how to start letting places.”
“I will certainly assist you. In fact I believe I can get you a tenant at once. The Bracebridges want just such a house, furnished. I will get my clerk to write to them—if you really mean it.”
“I mean it.”
“Well, that’s something. I pressed the point about your really meaning it, because you were so violently opposed to such a course when I spoke of it before. In fact you were almost personal, as though I had proposed something disgraceful—though it was true you came to agree with me at last.”