Evidently this was not a good start. With some women the argument of the welfare of their children is unanswerable. With others, the welfare of the husband comes first. Mrs. Henshaw had in spirit suffered all the pain and discomfort that Mr. Henshaw had experienced.
"Wouldn't you like your husband to get away from the city before the hot weather?" was the next suggestion. "He now has a middle room with very little air, and he might be in a place where he would not feel the heat so much. Wouldn't you like something of that sort for him?"
"Yes, I would," Mrs. Henshaw admitted.
"Do you think he would consider the Lakeview Sanatorium?"—a pleasant institution near the country which would be favorably known to Mrs. Henshaw. To have suggested the Mercy Hospital would have been merely to arouse old antagonisms, and by asking Mrs. Henshaw's advice in this way the social worker was in a sense making her a partner in the effort to persuade Mr. Henshaw.
"I'll talk to him about it," Mrs. Henshaw replied.
At this point the man appeared and said that he wanted to go to Mount Huron.