Mark Driver was just now in his element. His friend, Doctor Harefield, had broken down in health, his only hope being to relinquish an incipient practice and spend a considerable time in a more favourable climate. Mark had taken over Harefield's three rooms: a dining-room on the ground floor, intended to serve also as a patients' waiting-room; a small consulting-room in its rear, and a bedroom at the top of the house. The furniture, such as it was, had been bought at a valuation, not that Mark had intended to make such an outlay at the moment, but it was understood that the goodwill of Harefield's practice was to be thrown in. It was, in fact, far too small to be sold separately, although it might form the nucleus of the much larger one which his successor fully intended to build up.
Mark, having provided an elaborate tea and a profusion of flowers, looked forward with considerable zest to Carrissima's visit with Phoebe as her chaperon, and yet as he stood at the window awaiting her arrival he wondered whether he had not perhaps been a little too precipitate over his recent investment.
His outlook had been steadily changing since the day after his return from Paris. Although it appeared as if love had come upon him suddenly, he knew it had done nothing of the kind. While it seemed to have blossomed in a day, he understood that it had been developing for many months, perhaps, even for many years.
He could not feel absolutely confident. Carrissima had builded better than she knew. So cleverly had she dissembled her emotions that there were times when Mark feared lest he should take her completely by surprise; but in any case the declaration must not much longer be postponed. If his desires were gratified, it appeared obvious that these three rooms would prove inadequate, while, incongruously enough, it was the fact that he had made some kind of beginning by taking them, which justified his increasingly impatient aspirations.
Carrissima, arriving with Phoebe at half-past four, was prepared to admire everything. She was taken first to the small consulting-room, and shown various kinds of apparatus for the administration of ether, chloroform and gas, then to the waiting-room, where Phoebe poured out tea. Mrs. Lawrence Faversham, for her part, was more critical. She insisted that Mark had paid more than the furniture was worth. Much of it was fit only for the dusthole! The curtains, for instance, were falling to pieces, and in any case he positively was bound to invest in a new carpet.
"Look at the darns!" she cried. "It must have served for generation after generation of physicians. It is enough to put any patient off! Whatever you do without, you really must have a new carpet."
"Don't you think I could rub along with the old one for the present?" asked Mark, turning to Carrissima, who, however, felt she must agree with her sister-in-law.
"Such a fuss about seven or eight guineas," said Phoebe. "If you won't buy one I shall have to make you a present."
"Well, then," exclaimed Mark suddenly, "suppose you and Carrissima help me choose it. I am a perfect idiot at that sort of thing. Where shall we go?"
"You would never ask such a question," said Carrissima, looking wonderfully happy as she sat holding her cup and saucer, "if you had any real feeling for the Art of Shopping. We will go everywhere. The first thing is to land yourself in the neighbourhood—then you plunge. The idea of making up your mind where to buy a thing before you start. That's not the way. Do it thoroughly and see all that is to be seen."