"I am not defrauding a girl out of all that happiness: I am being defrauded. I am not the culprit: I am the victim. As a consequence of trying to save the lives of other husbands, I have nearly come to my own death as a bachelor: I have about succumbed to inanition: I am a mere Hamlet of soliloquy—and abstention."
It was the last playfulness of boyhood friendship, of a return to old ways of jesting when jesting meant nothing. But the glance into the breakfast room—those rallying words—the return of the snowball into the face—were the ending of a past: each felt that this was enough of it.
As young Ousley rode away, he wheeled his horse at the distance of some yards and called back formally:—
"Mrs. Ousley would like to see you as soon as you can come, doctor."
It was a professional command.
"I'll come immediately after breakfast."
"Thank you."
"Thank you!"
They had assumed another relation in life: on one side of a chasm was a young husband with his bride; on the other, the family physician.
As Dr. Birney poured out his coffee and buttered his biscuit, he said to himself that now the bread of life was being buttered.