“Perhaps if you were to work a little more intelligently you’d make more money,” she retorted.  “If only you’d keep your brains for the use of people who can pay—­and pay well—­I shouldn’t be deprived of every little comfort I ask for!  Instead of that, you’ve got half the poor of Monkshaven on your hands—­and if you think they can’t afford to pay, you simply don’t send in a bill.  Oh, I know!”—­sitting up excitedly in her chair, a patch of angry scarlet staining each cheek—­“I hear what goes on—­even shut away from the world as I am.  It’s just to curry popularity—­you get all the praise, and I suffer for it! I have to go without what I want—­”

“Oh, hush!  Hush!” Selwyn tried ineffectually to stem the torrent of complaint.

“No, I won’t hush!  It’s ‘Doctor Dick this,’ and ’Doctor Dick that’—­oh, yes, you see, I know their name for you, these slum patients of yours!—­but it’s Doctor Dick’s wife who really foots the bills—­by going without what she needs!”

“Minnie, be quiet!” Selwyn broke in sternly.  “Remember Miss Tennant is present.”

But she had got beyond the stage when the presence of a third person, even that of an absolute stranger, could be depended upon to exercise any restraining effect.

“Well, since Miss Tenant’s going to live here, the sooner she knows how things stand the better!  She won’t be here long without seeing how I’m treated”—­her voice rising hysterically—­“set on one side, and denied even the few small pleasures my health permits——­”

She broke off in a storm of angry weeping, and Sara retreated hastily from the room, leaving husband and wife alone together.

She had barely regained the shabby sitting-room when the front door opened and closed with a bang, and a gay voice could be heard calling—­

“Jane!  Jane!  Come here, my pretty Jane!  I’ve brought home some shrimps for tea!”

“Hold your noise, Miss Molly, now do!”

Sara could hear Jane’s admonitory whisper, and there followed a murmured colloquy, punctuated by exclamations and gusts of young laughter, calling forth renewed remonstrance from Jane, and then the door of the room was flung open, and Molly Selwyn sailed in and overwhelmed Sara with apologies for her reception, or rather, for the lack of it.  She was quite charming in her penitence, waving dimpled, deprecating hands, and appealing to Sara with a pair of liquid, disarming, golden-brown eyes that earned her forgiveness on the spot.

She was a statuesque young creature, compact of large, soft, gracious curves and swaying movements—­with her nimbus of pale golden hair, and curiously floating, undulating walk, rather reminding one of a stray goddess.  Always untidy with hooks lacking at important junctures, and the trimmings of her hats usually pinned on with a casualness that occasionally resulted in their deserting the hat altogether, she could still never be other than delightful and irresistibly desirable to look upon.