at a watch on her wrist.

"Your day of work, ends--?"

"At six, as a rule."

"I mustn't keep you. The truth is this. I am losing my zest for life,
and because I am losing my zest, I am losing my power over life. I am
beginning to feel weary, melancholy, sometimes apprehensive."

"Of what?"

"Middle age, I suppose, and the ending of all things."

"And you want me to prescribe against melancholy?"

"Why not? What is a doctor for? I tell you I am certain these feelings
in me come from a bodily condition."

"You think it quite impossible that they may proceed from a condition of
the soul?"

"Quite. I believe it all ends here on the day one dies. I feel as
certain of that as of my being a woman. And this being my conviction, I
think it of paramount importance to have a good time while I am here."

"Naturally."

"Now, a woman's good time depends on a woman's power over others, and
that power depends on her thorough-going belief in herself. So long as
she is perfectly well, she feels young, and so long as she feels young,
she can give the impression that she is young--with the slightest
assistance from art. And so long as she can give that impression--of
course I am speaking of a woman who is what is called 'attractive'--it
is all right with her. She will believe in herself, and she will have a
good time. Now, Doctor Isaacson--remember that I consider all
confidences made to a physician of your eminence, all that I tell you
to-day, as inviolably secret--"

"Of course," he said.

"Lately my belief in myself has been--well, shaken. I attribute this to
some failure in my health. So I have come to you. Try to find out if
anything in my bodily condition is wrong."

"Very well. But you must allow me to examine you, and I must put to you
a number of purely medical questions which you must answer truthfully."

_"En avant, monsieur!"_

She put her parasol down on the floor beside her.

"I don't believe in subterfuge--with a doctor," she said.

III

Mrs. Chepstow came out of the house in Cleveland Square as the clocks
were striking seven, stepped into a taximeter cab, and was hurried off
into the busy whirl of St. James's Street, while Doctor Meyer Isaacson
went upstairs to his bedroom to rest and dress for dinner. His clothes
were already laid out, and he sent his valet away. As soon as the man
was gone, the Doctor took off his coat and waistcoat, his collar and
tie, sat down in an arm-chair by the ope