HER NERVOUS PROSTRATION
she has to find trained nurses and settle everything before she comes back to me.”
“Then you’re not an invalid? I thought you were in pain and could n’t reach the bell. That’s the reason I looked in.”
“Oh, dear, no, I was only yawning! I came for what Laura calls the healing influence of solitude, but Laura thought as the place was so expensive, and treatment was included, we’d better take Turkish baths, massage, and electricity, they’re so good for the complexion. I have a little table to myself in the convalescents’ dining-room and have n’t made any acquaintances. I can’t stand their sweetbread complexions and their double chins. The patients are all so fat they might sing Isaac Watts’ hymn in unison: ‘Much of my time has run to waist.’”
“It is not an inspiring assemblage,” I agreed, “though I have n’t seen them all together, as you have.”
“And they think of nothing but themselves, which is exactly what I want to think about—myself, I mean. There’s one charm-
303
