Part 41

“An hour? I can’t stay an hour!”

“Why not?”

“It’s six o’clock. I must go home. Besides,” she added unguardedly, “I’m half starved.”

“Indeed! Had a cocktail to-day?”

“No. Certainly not.”

“Yet you have an appetite. A bad sign. Oh, a very bad sign—for the cocktail market.”

“I’m so tired all the time. And I wake up in the morning with hardly any strength to get out of bed—”

“Or the inclination? Which?” broke in the doctor.

“And my heart gives the queerest jumps and—”

“Thought we’d thrown that symptom-book into the fire. Stand up, please.”

She stood. Dr. Strong noted with satisfaction how, already, the lithe and well-set figure had begun to revert to its natural pose, showing that the muscles were beginning to do their work. He also noted that the hands, hitherto a mere mélange of nervously writhing fingers, hung easily slack.

“Your troubles,” he said pleasantly, “have only just begun. I think you’re strong enough now to begin work.”

“I’m not,” she protested, half weeping. “I feel faint this minute.”

“Good, healthy hunger. Of course, if a glance in your mirror convinces you that you’ve had enough of the treatment—”

Miss Ennis said something under her breath which sounded very much like “Brute!”

“Have you ever had a good sweat?” he asked abruptly.

Her lips curled superciliously. “I’m not given to perspiration, I’m thankful to—”

“Did I say ‘perspire’?” inquired he. “I understood myself to say ‘sweat.’ Have you ever—”

“No.”

“High time you began. Buy yourself the heaviest sweater you can find—you may call it a ‘perspirationer’ if you think the salesman will appreciate your delicacy—and I’ll be around to-morrow and set up a punching-bag for you.”

“What is that?”

“A device which you strike at. The blow forces it against a board and it returns and, unless you dodge nimbly, impinges upon your countenance. In other words, whacks you on the nose. Prizefighters use it.”

“I suppose you want me to be like a prizefighter.”

“The most beautiful pink-and-white skin and the clearest eye I’ve ever seen belonged to a middleweight champion. Yes, I’d like to see you exactly like him in that respect. One hour every day—”

“I simply can’t. I shan’t have time. With the walking I do now I’m busy all the morning and dead tired all the afternoon; and in the evening there is my bridge club—”

“Ah, you play bridge. For money?”

“Naturally we don’t play for counters.”

“Well, I’d give it up.”