little dinner-party at the club, and the function might have
been a depressed wake with my corpse in a coffin on the table. My
sisters, dear, kind souls, follow me with anxious eyes as if I were one
of their children sickening for chicken-pox. They upbraid me for leaving
them in ignorance, and in hushed voices inquire as to my symptoms. They
both came this morning to the Albany to see what they could do for me.
I don't see what they can do, save help Rogers put studs in my shirts.
They expressed such affectionate concern that at last I cried out:

"My dear girls, if you don't smile, I'll sit upon the hearthrug and howl
like a dog."

Then they exchanged glances and broke into hectic gaiety, dear things,
under the impression that they were brightening me up. I am being
deluged with letters. I had no idea I was such a popular person. They
come from high placed and lowly, from constituents whom my base and
servile flattery have turned into friends, from Members of Parliament,
from warm-hearted dowagers and from little girls who have inveigled me
out to lunch for the purpose of confiding to me their love affairs. I
could set up as a general practitioner of medicine on the advice that is
given me. I am recommended cod-liver oil, lung tonic, electric massage,
abdominal belts, warm water, mud baths, Sandow's treatment, and every
patent medicament save rat poison. I am urged to go to health resorts
ranging geographically from the top of the Jungfrau to Central Africa.
All kinds of worthy persons have offered to nurse me. Old General Wynans
writes me a four-page letter to assure me that I have only to go to his
friend Dr. Eustace Adams, of Wimpole Street, to be cured like a shot. I
happen to know that Eustace Adams is an eminent gynecologist.

And the worst of it all is that these effusions written in the milk of
human kindness have to be answered. Dale is not here. I have to sit down
at my desk and toil like a galley slave. I am being worn to a shadow.

Lola Brandt, too, has heard the news, Dale in Berlin, and the London
newspapers being her informants. Tears stood in her eyes when I called
to learn her decision. Why had I not told her I was so ill? Why had I
let her worry me with her silly troubles? Why had I not consulted
her friend, Sir Joshua Oldfield? She filled up my chair with cushions
(which, like most men, I find stuffy and comfortless), and if I had
given her the slightest encouragement, would have stuck my feet in h