"I'm quite sure that I'm not. But, Molly, it's so nice to be feeling better. Master of one's self. Not frightened about things."
"Of course it is, you old stupid! If you were always good how much happier you'd be! Take my advice. Do what I tell you, and everything will come right. You've got a great big brain, but you're a silly boy, too! Think how much more placid you are now. Never take any more spirits again!"
"No, I won't, darling. I promise you I won't."
"That's right, dear. And this nice new doctor will help you. You like him, don't you?"
"Molly! What a dear simple fool you are! _Like_ him? You don't in the least realise who he is. It's Morton Sims, Morton Sims himself! He's a fearfully important person. Twice, they say, he's refused to take a baronetcy. He's come down here to do research work. It's an enormous condescension on his part to come and plaster up my head. It's really rather like Lord Rosebery coming to shave one! And he'll send in a bill for about fifty pounds!"
"He won't, Gillie dear. I'm sure. But if he does, what's the use of worrying? I'll pay it out of my own money, and I've got nearly as much as you--nasty miser!"
They laughed together at this. Mary had three or four hundreds a year of her own, Gilbert a little more, independently of what he earned by writing. Mary was mean with her money. That is to say, she saved it up to give to poorer people and debated with herself about a new frock like a chancellor of the Exchequer about the advisability of a fresh tax. And Lothian didn't care and never thought about money. He had no real sense of personal property. He liked spending money. He was extravagant for other people. If he bought a rare book, a special Japanese colour-print, any desirable thing--he generally gave it away to some one at once. He really liked people with whom he came into contact to have delightful things quite as much as he liked to have them himself.
Nor was this an outcome of the poisoned state of his body, his brain, and--more terrible than all!--of his mind. It was genuine human kindness, an eager longing that others should enjoy things that he himself enjoyed so poignantly.
But what he gave must be the things that _he_ liked, though to all _necessity_ he was liberal. A sick poor person without proper nourishment, a child without a toy, some wretched tramp without tobacco for his pipe--to him these were all tragedies, equal in their appeal to his charity. And this was because of his trained power of psychology, his profound insight into the minds of others, though even that was marred by a Rousseau-like belief that every one was good and decent at heart! Still, the need of the dying village consumptive for milk and calf's-foot jelly, was no more vivid in his mind than the need of the tramp for a smoke. As far as he was able, it was his Duty, his happy duty, to satisfy the wants of both.