“It’s not quite the time for her to return from the Hospital—” he said.
“Hospital? Hospital? It’s always the Hospital! I’m sure I ought to be there, attended to and looked after quite as well as half of those strong young men with a bit of shell in their legs, or an arm off, or something of that kind! Such a fuss about nothing! God bless my soul! In Nelson’s time the fighting fellows cut their own limbs off and stuck their stumps into boiling tar! That was something like hospital stuff! No molly-coddling there!” The old gentleman chuckled with a curiously malevolent pleasure. “But now we have all the girls and women bandaging, poulticing and feeding every young man with a scratch—and the better-looking the young man happens to be, the longer the scratch takes to heal!” Here he chuckled again. “That girl of mine passes nearly all her time at the Hospital—I can’t imagine what she’ll do without it when the war’s over.”
“Ah!” And the Philosopher stroked his moustache meditatively. “Has it ever occurred to you to think what she will do without you when you are over?”
Old Maynard’s face grew suddenly pale, and a cowering fear gleamed in his eyes.
“What do you mean?” he queried half angrily. “I’m not over yet! And I don’t intend to be ‘over’!”
“Good! Quite good!” and the Philosopher smiled amicably. “But—you know—l’homme propose et Dieu dispose! It is always well to prepare for emergencies. I consider that you should make sure of your daughter’s future comfort in this world before you leave it.”
“Future comfort? God bless my soul!” snapped Maynard testily. “Do you suppose I’m a man to neglect the care of my own child? Future comfort? She’ll have everything I possess—and that’s more than anybody knows of I can tell you!”
Craig, F.S.A., LL.D., listened complacently. He was right in his surmise,—the girl would have plenty of money! Plenty of money! He almost smacked his lips as he thought of that friend of his who had secured a “Plum” in the matrimonial orchard—a “Plum” that had “dropped into his mouth with a bang!” Sylvia would not “drop” so—but she might be gathered gently off the parent tree with a careful hand. He thought a little before speaking again. Then he said:
“She’s a charming girl. She ought to marry.”
“Why?” And a twinge of pain caused the old Doctor to make a wry face as he put the question. “Why should she take up a husband to worry her for the rest of her life? She’s perfectly happy as she is.”