Part 77 (1/2)

Mrs. Peagrim would have liked to continue her researches, but a feeling that it was wiser not to stray too long from the main point restrained her. She bent towards him.

”You were going to say something when that girl interrupted us.”

Uncle Chris shot his cuffs with a debonair gesture.

”Was I? Was I? To be sure, yes. I was saying that you ought not to let yourself get tired. Deuce of a thing, getting tired. Plays the d.i.c.kens with the system.”

Mrs. Peagrim was disconcerted. The atmosphere seemed to have changed, and she did not like it. She endeavoured to restore the tone of the conversation.

”You are so sympathetic,” she sighed, feeling that she could not do better than to begin again at that point. The remark had produced good results before and it might do so a second time.

”Yes,” agreed Uncle Chris cheerily. ”You see, I have seen something of all this sort of thing, and I realize the importance of it. I know what all this modern rush and strain of life is for a woman in your position. Parties every night ... dancing ... a thousand and one calls on the vitality ... bound to have an effect sooner or later, unless--_unless_,” said Uncle Chris solemnly, ”one takes steps. Unless one acts in time. I had a friend--” His voice sank--”I had a very dear friend over in London, Lady Alice--but the name would convey nothing--the point is that she was in exactly the same position as you. On the rush all the time. Never stopped. The end was inevitable.

She caught cold, hadn't sufficient vitality to throw it off, went to a dance in mid-winter, contracted pneumonia....” Uncle Chris sighed.

”All over in three days,” he said sadly. ”Now at that time,” he resumed, ”I did not know what I know now. If I had heard of Nervino then....” He shook his head. ”It might have saved her life. It _would_ have saved her life. I tell you, Mrs. Peagrim, that there is nothing, there is no lack of vitality which Nervino cannot set right. I am no physician myself, I speak as a layman, but it acts on the red corpuscles of the blood....”

Mrs. Peagrim's face was stony. She had not spoken before, because he had given her no opportunity, but she spoke now in a hard voice.

”Major Selby!”

”Mrs. Peagrim?”

”I am not interested in patent medicines!”

”One can hardly call Nervino that,” said Uncle Chris reproachfully.

”It is a sovereign specific. You can get it at any drug store. It comes in two sizes, the dollar-fifty--or large--size, and the....”

Mrs. Peagrim rose majestically.

”Major Selby, I am tired....”

”Precisely. And, as I say, Nervino....”

”Please,” said Mrs. Peagrim coldly, ”go to the stage-door and see if you can find my limousine. It should be waiting in the street.”

”Certainly,” said Uncle Chris. ”Why, certainly, certainly, certainly.”

He left the box and proceeded across the stage. He walked with a lissom jauntiness. His eye was bright. One or two of those whom he pa.s.sed on his way had the idea that this fine-looking man was in pain.

They fancied that he was moaning. But Uncle Chris was not moaning. He was humming a gay s.n.a.t.c.h from the lighter music of the 'nineties.

CHAPTER XXI

WALLY MASON LEARNS A NEW EXERCISE

I

Up on the roof of his apartment, far above the bustle and clamour of the busy city, Wally Mason, at eleven o'clock on the morning after Mrs. Peagrim's Bohemian party, was greeting the new day, as was his custom, by going through his ante-breakfast exercises. Mankind is divided into two cla.s.ses--those who do setting-up exercises before breakfast and those who know they ought to but don't. To the former and more praiseworthy cla.s.s Wally had belonged since boyhood. Life might be vain and the world a void, but still he touched his toes the prescribed number of times and twisted his muscular body about according to the ritual. He did so this morning a little more vigorously than usual, partly because he had sat up too late the night before and thought too much and smoked too much, with the result that he had risen heavy-eyed, at the present disgraceful hour, and partly because he hoped by wearying the flesh to still the restlessness of the spirit. Spring generally made Wally restless, but never previously had it brought him this distracted feverishness. So he lay on his back and waved his legs in the air, and it was only when he had risen and was about to go still further into the matter that he perceived Jill standing beside him.