“Yet you used to rave about my beauty; and how indifferent I was to it.”
“To which?”
“To your raving, to be sure.”
“Ah! of course.”
“See how my color has gone. I think I never was vain, but who can look at such a reflection with any satisfaction? You are bronzed by exposure, but that rather improves you, and I’m sure, as we stand here, you look ten years younger than I do, instead of five older. That is because you have had no babies.”
“Ah! Indeed!” exclaimed the doctor, with Pantagruelistic gayety. “I thought they were all mine—all but that doubling feat. That was entirely your invention.”
“For shame! Have you not teazed me enough with that. I think you are so absurd. I wish you would never make such a remark again.”
“Well, then, I won’t; but the way you take it is so amusing. Are you going to stay?”
“Do you wish me to?”
“Ah! That is not to be considered,” said the doctor, with his usual gallantry, which was not gallantry at all in his case, but the simple expression of his interpretation of woman’s most primitive right. “The question is, do you wish to stay?”