"Who," I asked, "who made thee a ruler and a judge?"
And then, truly honestly, I had to beg him to leave me in order that I might compose myself....
Compose myself!
To shew you how unnerved I had become, I wrote down something which I had never breathed to Arthur or Will. We have always been so poor that I had dreaded an emergency, a sudden illness, for which I should be unable to provide. In Mount Street we are positive Spartans! Well, from the day of Will's birth I have pinched and scraped, scraped and pinched, trying to put something by... A little nest-egg... Thirty years—nearly. I have never dared invest it, in case something happened. It lies at the bank—in a separate account—ready at a moment's notice. When I was so ill four years ago, did I touch it? But before my operation—in case anything happened—I told Will the amount and how I had arranged for him to be able to draw on it. What I tell you is told to the grave; I have torn up the letter; they still do not know; but, when I saw the amount, I was truly tempted to say "Well done, thou good and faithful servant" ... I have lost the thread....
Ah, yes! I was saying that my nerve had entirely gone... I was so much exhausted that I fell into some kind of trance. Goodness knows the thousand and one things that go to make up a dream... Opposites... All that sort of thing... I dreamt most wonderfully about Will and—I wonder if you can guess? Phyllida! They have been brought up together—cousins! She is young, high-spirited, very, very attractive; and, thanks to Brackenbury's marriage, she is well-dowered... I said to myself in the dream "If she could marry happily some one in her own station..." And then I seemed to see her with Will... It was but a phantasy. I should do nothing to encourage it, I am not at all sure that I even approve...
Alas for reality! Phyllida came and bullied me for my "interference." ... But I told you about that. And, the day before the operation, Arthur asked whether I really thought it was necessary. Like that! At the eleventh hour!
"I don't trust these surgeons," he said. "They make operations."
At first I was touched...
"Dear Arthur," I said, "I am not doing this for my amusement."
"Oh, of course not!," he answered. "All the same, I wish it could be avoided. And, if it can't be avoided, I wish you'd kept more quiet about it. I don't know what you said to Spenworth and Brackenbury, but they're making the deuce's own tale of it."