“Not the least in the world,” I replied.

“Is the act of thinking them out an effort to you?” he asked.

“Not at all.  They come as though someone else were planning them for me.”

“Well, well!  I think I can certainly be of use to you in this matter as in others.  I understand your temperament thoroughly.  And now let me give you my first prescription.”

He went to a corner of the room and lifted from the floor an ebony casket, curiously carved and ornamented with silver.  This he unlocked.  It contained twelve flasks of cut glass, stoppered with gold and numbered in order.  He next pulled out a side drawer in this casket, and in it I saw several little thin empty glass tubes, about the size of a cigarette-holder.  Taking two of these he filled them from two of the larger flasks, corked them tightly, and then turning to me, said: 

“To-night, on going to bed, have a warm bath, empty the contents of the tube marked No. 1 into it, and then immerse yourself thoroughly for about five minutes.  After the bath, put the fluid in this other tube marked 2, into a tumbler of fresh spring water, and drink it off.  Then go straight to bed.”

“Shall I have any dreams?” I inquired with a little anxiety.

“Certainly not,” replied Heliobas, smiling.  “I wish you to sleep as soundly as a year-old child.  Dreams are not for you to-night.  Can you come to me tomorrow afternoon at five o’clock?  If you can arrange to stay to dinner, my sister will be pleased to meet you; but perhaps you are otherwise engaged?”

I told him I was not, and explained where I had taken rooms, adding that I had come to Paris expressly to put myself under his treatment.

“You shall have no cause to regret this journey,” he said earnestly.  “I can cure you thoroughly, and I will.  I forget your nationality—­ you are not English?”

“No, not entirely.  I am half Italian.”

“Ah, yes!  I remember now.  But you have been educated in England?”

“Partly.”

“I am glad it is only partly,” remarked Heliobas.  “If it had been entirely, your improvisations would have had no chance.  In fact you never would have improvised.  You would have played the piano like poor mechanical Arabella Goddard.  As it is, there is some hope of originality in you—­you need not be one of the rank and file unless you choose.”

“I do not choose,” I said.

“Well, but you must take the consequences, and they are bitter.  A woman who does not go with her time is voted eccentric; a woman who prefers music to tea and scandal is an undesirable acquaintance; and a woman who prefers Byron to Austin Dobson is—­in fact, no measure can gauge her general impossibility!” I laughed gaily.  “I will take all the consequences as willingly as I will take your medicines,” I said, stretching out my hand for the little vases which he gave me wrapped in paper.  “And I thank you very much, monsieur.  And”—­here I hesitated.  Ought I not to ask him his fee?  Surely the medicines ought to be paid for?