II

Doctor Meyer Isaacson did not know Mrs. Chepstow personally, but he had seen her occasionally, at supper in smart restaurants, at first nights, riding in the Park.  Now, as he looked at her name, he realized that he had not even seen her for a long time, perhaps for a couple of years.  He had heard the rumours of her decadence, and taken little heed of them, not being specially interested in her.  Nevertheless, this morning, as he shut up his book and got up to go downstairs to his work, he was aware of a desire to hear the clock strike the half-hour after five, and to see Henry opening the door to show Mrs. Chepstow into his consulting-room.  A woman who had lived her life and won her renown—­or infamy—­could scarcely be uninteresting.

As the day wore on, he was several times conscious of a wish to quicken the passing of its moments, and when Sir Henry Grebe, the penultimate patient, proved to be an elderly malade imaginaire of dilatory habit, involved speech, and determined misery, he was obliged firmly to check a rising desire to write a hasty bread-pill prescription and fling him in the direction of Marlborough House.  The half-hour chimed, and still Sir Henry explained the strange symptoms by which he was beset—­the buzzings in the head, the twitchings in the extremities, the creepings, as of insects with iced legs, about the roots of the hair.  His eyes shone with the ardour of the determined valetudinarian closeted with one paid to attend to his complaints.

And Mrs. Chepstow?  Had she come?  Was she sitting in the next room, looking inattentively at the newest books?

“The most extraordinary matter in my case,” continued Sir Henry, with uplifted finger, “is the cold sweat that—­”

The doctor interrupted him.

“My advice to you is this—­”

“But I haven’t explained to you about the cold sweat that—­”

“My advice to you is this, Sir Henry.  Don’t think about yourself; walk for an hour every day before breakfast, eat only two meals a day, morning and evening, take at least eight hours’ rest every night, give up lounging about in your club, occupy yourself—­with work for others, if possible.  I believe that to be the most tonic work there is—­and I see no reason why you should not be a centenarian.”

“I—­a centenarian?”

“Why not!  There is nothing the matter with you, unless you think there is.”

“Nothing—­you say there is nothing the matter with me!”

“I have examined you, and that is my opinion.”

The face of the patient flushed with indignation at this insult.

“I came to you to be told what was the matter.”

“And I am glad to inform you nothing is the matter—­with your body.”

“Do you mean to imply that my mind is diseased?”

“No.  But you don’t give it enough to think about.  You only give it yourself.  And that isn’t nearly enough.”