“I rather doubt that,” said Alfred, patting himself in the region he had just filled, “I rather doubt that. But I should be more satisfied if you went to a heart specialist. Who is Dr. Money-Berry? What’s his line?”
“He is a specialist,” said Regina, with an air, “on all matters connected with the internal organs above the belt, and those bound in the chains of fatty degeneration of the heart, he sets free. To those whose food does not digest properly, he seems able to give a new digestion. I have full faith in his integrity and his skill, and I beg, dear Alfred, that you will not worry yourself. I am quite a new woman, regenerated, rejuvenated.”
“Yes, I know, but you are getting so thin.”
“And don’t you like me better thinner?”
“No, I couldn’t like you better, that’s impossible, but if you are better in health for being thinner it’s all very well. But if you are going on reducing yourself to a miserable skeleton nothing will make me believe it is good for you or make me declare I admire you, for I never shall.”
After he had gone she sat with a flushed and uneasy expression on her smooth face. As the gate clicked behind her father’s departing form Julia burst into laughter.
“Lor’, mother,” she said, “how can you bamboozle poor daddy as you do?”
“Julia!”
“Yes, I mean it. Poor daddy doesn’t see one inch before his nose, and you are a sensible woman. You let him think that Dr. Money-Berry is a specialist for fat round the heart.”
“What do you mean?”