“Oh, father, how clever you are! That was exactly what he said: and I did not point out that he was contradicting himself, for fear it should make him angry. But he did not mind me. He said he could trust Mr. Mannering of the Museum; he was quite sure he should get paid; and he is sending it back by one of the young men, because it was too heavy for me.”
“My poor little girl! I ought to have known it would be too heavy for you.”
“Oh, never mind,” said Dora. “I only carried it half the way. It was getting very heavy indeed, I will not deny, when I met Mr. Gordon, and he carried it for me to Fiddler’s shop.”
“Who is Mr. Gordon?” said Mr. Mannering, raising his head.
“He is a friend of Miss Bethune’s,” said Dora, with something of hesitation in her voice which struck her father’s ear.
Dr. Roland looked very straight before him, taking care to make no comment, and not to meet Dora’s eye. There was a tacit understanding between them now on several subjects, which the invalid felt vaguely, but could not explain to himself. Fortunately, however, it had not even occurred to him that there was anything more remarkable in the fact of a young man, met at hazard, carrying Dora’s book for her, than if the civility had been shown to himself.
“You see,” he said, “it is painful to have to make you aware of all my indiscretions, Roland. What has a man to do with rare editions, who has a small income and an only child like mine? The only thing is,” he added, with a short laugh, “they should bring their price when they come to the hammer,—that has always been my consolation.”
“They are not coming to the hammer just yet,” said the doctor. He possessed himself furtively, but carelessly, of the piece of paper on the table—the bill which, as Janie said, was wanted by a gentleman waiting downstairs. “You just manage to get over this thing, Mannering,” he said, in an ingratiating tone, “and I’ll promise you a long bill of health and plenty of time to make up all your lost way. You don’t live in the same house with a doctor for nothing. I have been waiting for this for a long time. I could have told Vereker exactly what course it would take if he hadn’t been an ass, as all these successful men are. He did take a hint or two in spite of himself; for a profession is too much for a man, it gives a certain fictitious sense in some cases, even when he is an ass. Well, Mannering, of course I couldn’t prophesy what the end would be. You might have succumbed. With your habits, I thought it not unlikely.”
“You cold-blooded practitioner! And what do you mean by my habits? I’m not a toper or a reveller by night.”
“You are almost worse. You are a man of the Museum, drinking in bad air night and day, and never moving from your books when you can help it. It was ten to one against you; but some of you smoke-dried, gas-scented fellows have the devil’s own constitution, and you’ve pulled through.”