“That’s all right,” said Gordon. “The thing’s quite plain––especially the general lassitude you complain of. The trouble is that if you don’t make an effort it’s going to become chronic.”
Again Waynefleet looked at him in astonishment, for Gordon’s tone was very suggestive.
“Yes,” added the medical adviser, “it’s a complaint a good many men, who haven’t been raised to work, are afflicted with. Well, I’ll mix you up a tonic, and you’ll drive down for it yourself. The thing won’t be half as efficacious if you send the hired man. Then you’ll set to every morning soon as breakfast’s over, and do a couple of hours’ smart chopping for a week. By that time you’ll find it easy, and you can go on an hour or two in the afternoon. Nobody round here will recognize you, if you keep it up for the next three months.”
Waynefleet’s thin face grew red, but Gordon’s imperturbable demeanour restrained him from betraying his indignation.
“You don’t understand that I couldn’t swing an axe for five minutes together,” he objected.
“The trouble,” answered Gordon, “is that you don’t want to.”
Waynefleet made an attempt to rise, but his companion 95 laid a hand upon his arm and pressed him down again.
“You were anxious for my advice, and now I’m going to prescribe,” Gordon continued. “Two hours’ steady chopping every day, to be raised by degrees to six. Then I’d let up on smoking cigars of that kind, and practise a little more self-denial in one or two other respects. You could make things easier for Miss Waynefleet with the money you save.”
He rose with a laugh. “Well, I’m going. All you have to do is to carry out my suggestions, and you may still make yourself and your ranch a credit to the district. In the meanwhile, this place would be considerably improved by a little ventilation.”
He went out, and left Waynefleet gazing in indignant astonishment at the door he carefully fixed open. It seemed to Waynefleet almost incredible that such words should have been spoken to him, and the suggestion that at the cost of a painful effort he should endeavour to make himself a credit to that barbarous neighbourhood rankled most of all. He had felt, hitherto, that he had conferred a favour on the community by settling there. He lay still until his daughter came in and glanced at him inquiringly.