hotel at all!

"The fact is, I'm neurasthenic," he said simply, just as if he had been
saying, "The fact is, I've got a wooden leg."

"Oh!" I laughed, determined to treat him as Boissy Minor, and not as
Octave Boissy.

"I have a morbid horror of walking in the open air. And yet I cannot
bear being in a small enclosed space, especially when it's moving. This
is extremely inconvenient. _Mais que veux-tu?... Suis comme ca!_"

"_Je te plains_" I put in, so as to return his familiar and flattering
"thou" immediately.

"I was strongly advised to go and stay in the country," he went on, with
the same serious, wistful simplicity, "and so I ordered a special saloon
carriage on the railway, so as to have as much breathing room as
possible; and I ventured from my house to this station in an auto. I
thought I could surely manage that. But I couldn't! I had a terrible
crisis on arriving at the station, and I had to sit on a luggage-truck
for four hours. I couldn't have persuaded myself to get into the saloon
carriage for a fortune! I couldn't go back home in the auto! I couldn't
walk! So I stepped into the hotel. I've been here ever since."

"But when was this?"

"Three months ago. My doctors say that in another six weeks I shall be
sufficiently recovered to leave. It is a most distressing malady. _Mais
que veux-tu?_ I have a suite in the hotel and my own servants. I walk
out here into the hall because it's so large. The hotel people do the
best they can, but of course--" He threw up his hands. His resigned,
gentle smile was at once comic and tragic to me.

"But do you mean to say you couldn't walk out of that door and go home?"
I questioned.

"Daren't!" he said, with finality. "Come to my rooms, will you, and have
some tea."

II

A little later his own valet served us with tea in a large private
drawing-room on the sixth or seventh floor, to reach which we had
climbed a thousand and one stairs; it was impossible for Octave Boissy
to use the lift, as he was convinced that he would die in it if he took
such a liberty with himself. The room was hung with modern pictures,
such as had certainly never been seen in any hotel before. Many
knick-knacks and embroideries were also obviously foreign to the hotel.

"But how have you managed to attend the rehearsals of the new play?" I
demanded.

"Oh!" said he, languidly, "I never attend any rehearsals of my plays.
Mademoiselle Lemonnier sees to all that."

"She takes the lead