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 dickens
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