“But when was this?”

“Three months ago.  My doctors say that in another six weeks I shall be sufficiently recovered to leave.  It is a most distressing malady. Mais que veux-tu? I have a suite in the hotel and my own servants.  I walk out here into the hall because it’s so large.  The hotel people do the best they can, but of course—­” He threw up his hands.  His resigned, gentle smile was at once comic and tragic to me.

“But do you mean to say you couldn’t walk out of that door and go home?” I questioned.

“Daren’t!” he said, with finality.  “Come to my rooms, will you, and have some tea.”

II

A little later his own valet served us with tea in a large private drawing-room on the sixth or seventh floor, to reach which we had climbed a thousand and one stairs; it was impossible for Octave Boissy to use the lift, as he was convinced that he would die in it if he took such a liberty with himself.  The room was hung with modern pictures, such as had certainly never been seen in any hotel before.  Many knick-knacks and embroideries were also obviously foreign to the hotel.

“But how have you managed to attend the rehearsals of the new play?” I demanded.

“Oh!” said he, languidly, “I never attend any rehearsals of my plays.  Mademoiselle Lemonnier sees to all that.”

“She takes the leading part in this play, doesn’t she, according to the posters?”

“She takes the leading part in all my plays,” said he.

“A first-class artiste, no doubt?  I’ve never seen her act.”

“Neither have I!” said Octave Boissy.  And as I now yielded frankly to my astonishment, he added:  “You see, I am not interested in the theatre.  Not only have I never attended a rehearsal, but I have never seen a performance of any of my plays.  Don’t you remember that it was engineering, above all else, that attracted me?  I have a truly wonderful engineering shop in the basement of my house in the Avenue du Bois.  I should very much have liked you to see it; but you comprehend, don’t you, that I’m just as much cut off from the Avenue du Bois as I am from Timbuctoo.  My malady is the most exasperating of all maladies.”

“Well, Boissy Minor,” I observed, “I suppose it has occurred to you that your case is calculated to excite wonder in the simple breast of a brutal Englishman.”

He laughed, and I was glad that I had had the courage to reduce him definitely to the rank of Boissy Minor.

“And not only in the breast of an Englishman!” he said. “Mais que veux-tu? One must live.”

“But I should have thought you could have made a comfortable living out of engineering.  In England consulting engineers are princes.”

“Oh yes!”

“And engineering might have cured your neurasthenia, if you had taken it in sufficiently large quantities.”

“It would,” he agreed quietly.