"He did, too. Life for me became impregnated with Madeline and Angelina as with a domestic odour. That marvellous child haunted my hours of leisure long before I had ever seen her. As the months and years passed, and Jack and I fared up and down the world together, I sometimes wondered whether we hadn't both married Madeline. Jack was a model husband. The notion that any other woman existed, or that any other man could love a woman as he loved Madeline, never entered his head. He was perfectly satisfied as long as one sat and listened to him talking about Madeline. I believe he would have urged me to go and do likewise, if he hadn't been convinced that no more Madelines were available. I believe, too, he thought me a bit of an ass to take him down and introduce him instead of marrying her myself. But as you will see, she and I were not affinities. "So life went on, and now I am coming to the time when Captain Macedoine's daughter comes into the thing. Oh, no, I haven't forgotten what I was talking about. Time passed, and one voyage we left home with Jack in an anxious frame of mind. The child was about five years old then and she was sick. Something the matter with her throat. Jack was like a caged bear when we got to sea. There was no wireless then, you know. You would have thought there had never been a sick child on earth before. 'Fred,' he would say, 'I left orders--get the best advice, best of everything. I don't give a damn what it costs,' And he'd prance to and fro. He never looked at the ship. If we dropped a knot below our customary two hundred a day, he'd be in my room growling, 'Aren't we ever goin' to get to Alexandria, Fred?' When we did get there he fled up to the post office to get his mail--forgot all about ours of course. '_Not yet out of danger--diphtheria_,' so ran the telegram in reply to his own frantic message. I never had such a time in my life. He was like a man demented. He would catch me by the shoulder and coat-collar and glare at me out of his bulging, blood-shot brown eyes, his fat cheeks all drawn into pouches, and stutter, 'Fred, this is the end o' me. If I lose one I lose both. My God, I've a good mind to go home. I tell you I'm going off my head. If I lose one I lose both. Madeline'll never live through the loss o' the child. What shall I do, oh, what shall I do?' I believe he used to go into his cabin, shut the door, and pester the Almighty with his petitions. You know, they say domestic ties strengthen a man's personality, stimulate him to ambition. I have not noticed it. On the contrary, it has often seemed to me that married men adopt the ethics of the jungle. Life for them is a case of the man and his mate against the world. The jungle reverberates with their cries of rage, jealousy, and amorous delight. What are literature and drama but the coördination of these elevated cat-calls?" "Oh, come!" murmured the Surgeon.