"You can
suffer no--remorse. That is what makes failure so dreadful--the
knowledge that things might have been otherwise if one had liked."
George laughed quite gaily. Gloom never lay long upon this young man.
"You're a sweet little person," he said. "You ought to be right, but
you are wrong. When I didn't work I didn't mind failing. It's when
I've tried that I get sick."
Margaret's eyes brightened. There was melancholy here.
"Oh, I know what you mean. I know so well. I have felt that. You mean
the--the haunting fear that you may never be able to succeed; that you
have not the--the talent, the capacity." She continued pleadingly:
"Oh, you mustn't think that. You can--you _will_ succeed next time,
you know."
"Rather!" responded George brightly.
Margaret was quite pained. She would have had him express doubt,
despondently sigh; would have heartened him with her poem. The
confident "rather!" jarred. She hurried from its vigour.
She asked: "What had you intended to do?"
"I was to have got a _locum tenens_. I think it would have developed
into a permanency. A big, rough district up in Yorkshire with a man
who keeps six horses going. His second assistant--a pal of mine--wants
to chuck it."
"Why?"
"Why? Oh, partly because he's fed up with it, partly because he wants
a practice of his own.
Pages:
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45