“Oh, Doctor, I shall try!” and poor little Mrs. Carter looked very like Bobby and not much older. “I have been very remiss. I did not know.”
“Another thing,” and the accusing angel went on in a stern voice. He had heard all of this before from this little butterfly woman and he felt that he must impress upon her even more the importance of guarding her husband from all financial worries. “If when he’s well he finds bills to be paid and obligations to be met, he will drop right back into the condition in which I found him last May when I was called to the case. You remember,” and he turned to Helen, “his troubled talk about lamb chops and silk stockings, do you not?”
Helen dropped the gay bouquet and covered her face with her hands. Great sobs shook her frame. Remember! Could she ever forget it? And yet she had been behaving as though she had forgotten it, only that morning insisting she must have a new suit before she could get a job. What was Dr. Wright thinking of her? He had spoken so sternly and looked so scornful.
His scorn was all turned to concern now. He had not meant to distress Helen so much, only to impress upon her the importance of not letting financial worries reach her father. He looked at the poor stricken little woman who seemed to have shrivelled up into a wizened little child who had just been punished. Had he been too severe in his harangue? Well, nothing short of severity would reach the selfish heart of Mrs. Carter. But Helen—Helen was not selfish, only thoughtless and young. He had not meant to grieve her like this.
“I’m sorry,” was all he could say.
“It seems awful that we should be so blind that you should have to say such things to us,” said Helen, trying to control her voice.
“I know I am a worthless woman,” said the poor little mother plaintively. “Nobody ever expected me to be anything else and I have never been anything else. I don’t understand finance—I don’t understand life. Please call Douglas and Nan here, Helen. I want to speak to them.”
“Let me do it,” said the young doctor eagerly. He felt that running away from the scene of disaster would be about the most graceful thing he could do just then.
“I believe I should like you to be here if you don’t mind.”