“More than I can tell you at this moment, wild with happiness, but not more than I shall prove to you in the continuance of our love.”
“Besides, dearest, do not have any illusions on the splendors of this position of which you speak; it is more than probable that they will never be realized, for I am not a man of money, and will do nothing to gain any. If it does not come by itself—”
“It will come.”
“That is not the object for which I work. What I wish I have obtained partly; if now I make money and obtain a rich practice, the jealousy of my confreres will make me lose, or wait too long, for what my ambition prefers to a fortune. For the moment this position will be modest; my four thousand francs of salary, that which I gain at the central bureau while waiting to have the title of hospital physician, and five hundred francs a month more that my editor offers me for work and a review of bacteriology, will give us nearly twelve thousand francs, and we must content ourselves with that for some time.”
“That is a fortune to me.”
“To me also; but I thought I ought to tell you.”
“And when do you wish our marriage to take place?”
“Immediately after the necessary legal delay, and as soon as I am settled in a new apartment; for you could not come here as my wife, where you have been seen so often. It would not be pleasant for you or for me.”
“And we will not be so foolish as to put ourselves in the hands of an upholsterer; the first one cost enough.”
He said these last words with fierce energy, but continued immediately: