d the state of the case, as it lay between my ideal and
my fact. That I had been more or less impatient of speech in my own
home for some time past, is probably true. The ungoverned lip is a
terrible master; and I had been a slave too long. I was in the habit
of finding fault with my patients. I was accustomed to be what we call
"quick" with servants. Neither had, I thought, as a rule, seemed to
care the less for me on this account. If I lost a patient or a
coachman now and then, I could afford to. The item did not trouble me.
I was inconsiderate at times with personal friends. They said, It is
his way, and bore with me. People usually bore with me; they always
had. I looked upon this as one of the rights of temperament, so far as
I looked upon it at all. I do not think this indulgence had occurred
to me as other than a tribute. It is common enough in dealing with men
of my sort. (And alas, there are enough of my sort; I must be looked
upon rather as a type than a specimen.) Such indulgence is a movement
of self-defence, or else of philosophy, upon the part of those who come
in contact with us. To this view of the subject I had given no
attention.

I had lived to be almost fifty years old, and no person had ever said:
"Esmerald Thorne, you trust your attractive qualities too far. Power
and charm do not give a man a permit to be disagreeable. Your
temperament does not release you from the common-place human duty of
self-restraint. A gentleman has no more right to get uncontrollably
angry than he has to get drunk. The patience with which others receive
you is not a testimony to your strength; it is a concession to your
weakness. You are living upon concessions like disease, or childhood,
or age."

No one had said this--surely not my wife. I can recall an expression
of bewilderment at times upon her beautiful face, which for the moment
perplexed me. After I had gone out, I would remember that I had been
nervous in my manner. I do not think I had ever spoken with actual
roughness to her, until this day of which I write. That I had been
sometimes cross enough, is undoubtedly the case.

On that November day I had been overworked. This was no novelty, and I
offer it as no excuse. I had been up for two nights with a dangerous
case. I had another in the suburbs, and a consultation out of town.
There was a quarrel at the hospital, and a panic in Stock Street. I
had seen sixty patients that day. I h