Page:Man's Country (1923).pdf/306

 "This is my reward," he reproached, "for being a generous, trustful husband."

But the doctor felt that he could not permit this man who touched his sympathies to do himself the injury of self-pity when self-pity was neither justified nor commendable. "On the contrary, it is your punishment for assuming that the marriage ceremony and a few casual kindnesses that are after all selfish in their origin and selfish in their aim, give a man a strangle-hold on a woman's heart. It is your nature, I judge, Mr. Judson, to assume too much. It is an American trait. You mean well. There is an old saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. You are what I should call a hell-paver. The hell-paver is such a sanguine optimist that he doesn't put all his cards on the table—even to himself. The country is full of them—hell-paving businessmen, hell-paving statesmen, hell-paving editors, preachers, doctors, and soon. You area hell-paving husband. You meant well, but—"

"I'll kill that Englishman," George cried, with a roar of rage, and started for the door, "I'll kill him!"

The doctor did not even reach out a hand to restrain this potential homicide on his way to do the deed. Instead he remarked thoughtfully, "Perhaps that is the first thing to do," and he said it speculatively, eyes on distance as if, once