Mrs. Betty buried her face in the pages, crumbling her toast irritably as her eyes ran to and fro over the head-lines. She glanced up as her husband entered, a smooth-faced, compressed, and professional person, with an assured manner and an incisive cut of the mouth and chin. “Any news in this hub of monotony?” His wife put down the paper, and called back the dog who was poking his nose near the bacon-dish on the fire-guard. “Quack medicines much in evidence. The fellows are arrant Papists, Parker; they promise to cure everything with nothing. Tea or coffee?” Mrs. Betty spoke with the slight drawl that was habitual to her. Her admirers felt it to be distinguished, but its effect upon shop assistants was to spread the instincts of socialism. Dr. Parker Steel declared for coffee, and took salt to his porridge. He was not a man who wasted words, save perhaps on the most paying patients. Professional ambition, and an aggressive conviction that he was to be the leading citizen in Roxton filled the greater part of the gentleman’s sphere of consciousness. “And local sensations?” “Mrs. Pindar’s ball, a very dull affair, sausage-rolls and jelly, and a floor like glue—probably.” “Any one there?” “The Lombard Street clique, the Carnabys, Tom Flemming, Kate Murchison, etc., etc., etc.” Parker Steel grunted, and appeared to be estimating the number of cubes in the sugar bowl by way of exercising himself in the compilation of statistics. “Murchison not there, I suppose?” he asked. “The wife—quite sufficient.” Her husband smiled, showing the regular white teeth under his trim, black mustache with scarcely any flow of feeling in his features. Dr. Parker Steel was very proud of his teeth and finger-nails. “You don’t love that lady much, eh?” Mrs. Betty’s refined superciliousness trifled with the suggestion. “Kate Murchison? I cannot say that I ever trouble much about her. Rather fat and vulgar—perhaps. Fat women do not appeal to me; they seem to carry sentimentality and gush about with them like patchouli. Do you think that you are gaining ground on Murchison, Parker, eh?” The husband appeared confident. “Perhaps.” “Old Hicks will resign the Hospital soon; you must take it.” “Not worth the trouble.” Mrs. Betty’s dark eyes condemned the assertion. “Dirt’s money in the wrong place, as they say in trade, Parker.” “Well?” And the amused consort glanced at her with a cold flicker of affection. “Study it on utilitarian principles. Lady Twaddle-twaddle sends her cook, or her gardener, or her boot-boy to be treated in Roxton Hospital. You exercise yourself on the boot-boy or the cook, and Lady Twaddle-twaddle approves the cure. Praise is never thrown away. Let the old ladies who attend missionary meetings say of you, ‘that Dr. Steel is so kind and attentive to the poor.’ We have to lay the foundation of a palace in the soil.”