“Rather.  But so much worse for my patients that I haven’t thought much about it for myself.  At two places I had the satisfaction of personally seeing to the moving of the invalid from a little six-by-nine inferno of a bedroom to a big and airy sitting-room.  It gave me the keenest pleasure to see it hurt the tidy housewife, who didn’t want her best room mussed up.”  He chuckled.  “In one case I made her take down the stuffy lace window-curtains and open things up in great shape.  She came near having a convulsion on the spot.  Curious how a certain type of mind regards any little innovation like that.  That woman would have let her unlucky husband smother to death in that oven before it would have occurred to her to move him out of it.”

“I rather wonder at your continuing to practise in a village like this, with that sort of people, when you have so much city work, and could do a large business with a city office.”

Burns stretched out an arm, thrusting his hand deep into the long grass.  “That sort—­narrow-minded people—­aren’t all found in the country, though—­not by a long shot.  I’ve sometimes thought I’d take an office in town, but, when it comes to making the move, I can’t bring myself to it.  You see, I happen to like it out here, and I like the village work.  This way I get both sorts.  I don’t know why one’s ambition should be all for city work.  The people out here need me just as much as those where the streets are paved.  There’s a heap more fresh air and sunshine and liberty here than in town.  And, as for being busy, there are only twenty-four hours in the day, anywhere.”

“And you fill the most of those full.  So you do.  Yet, I should think your love for surgery would lead you to take up an exclusive surgical practice.  You could make a name.  You have a good-sized reputation already, with your ability you could make it a great one.”

Burns looked at Leaver.  The two men regarded each other with a sudden fresh interest, a sudden wonder as to the operation of each other’s minds.  The man on the bench, broken down by just such a life as he recommended to his friend, looked at the man on the grass, unworn and vigorous, and questioned whether, with all his virtues, Burns were really possessed of the proper ambition.  The man on the grass, aware of large interests in his busy life, looked at the man on the bench, whose interests were at present wholly concerned with recovering his health, and wondered what insanity it was which bound his fellow mortal’s brain that he could not see things in their right values.  There was a long minute’s silence.  Then Burns, lying at full length upon his side in the warm grass, his head propped upon his elbow, began, in a thoughtful tone: 

“Ever since a period early in our acquaintance my wife and I have had a vision before us.  It was one that, curiously enough, we both had separately first, and then discovered, by accident, that it was mutual.  The time has come when we are to carry it out.  My wife has bought an old place, in the real country, three miles out on a road that turns off from the main road to the city.  She is going to fit it up for a hospital for crippled children, curables, mostly, though her heart may lead her into keeping a few of the other sort, if there is no other home for them to go to.  I’m to have the distinguished honour of being surgeon to the place.”