“Oh, this one isn't. It's only five guineas.”
“Five guineas is rather a lot of money, Minnie,” he said gravely. “Couldn't you manage with the table you have for a bit longer?”
Mrs. Selwyn tossed the price-list pettishly on to the floor.
“Of, of course!” she declared. “That's always the way. 'Can't I manage with what I have? Can't I make do with this, that, and the other?' I believe you grudge every penny you spend on me!” she wound up acrimoniously.
A dull red crept into Selwyn's face.
“You know it's not that, Minnie,” he replied in a painfully controlled voice. “It's simply that I can't afford these things. I give you everything I can. If I were only a rich man, you should have everything you want.”
“Perhaps if you were to work a little more intelligently you'd make more money,” she retorted. “If only you'd keep your brains for the use of people who can pay—and pay well—I shouldn't be deprived of every little comfort I ask for! Instead of that, you've got half the poor of Monkshaven on your hands—and if you think they can't afford to pay, you simply don't send in a bill. Oh, I know!”—sitting up excitedly in her chair, a patch of angry scarlet staining each cheek—“I hear what goes on—even shut away from the world as I am. It's just to curry popularity—you get all the praise, and I suffer for it! I have to go without what I want—”
“Oh, hush! Hush!” Selwyn tried ineffectually to stem the torrent of complaint.
“No, I won't hush! It's 'Doctor Dick this,' and 'Doctor Dick that'—oh, yes, you see, I know their name for you, these slum patients of yours!—but it's Doctor Dick's wife who really foots the bills—by going without what she needs!”
“Minnie, be quiet!” Selwyn broke in sternly. “Remember Miss Tennant is present.”