"Please bring up the book with my coffee in twenty minutes, Henry," he said to his servant, as he went in.
In half an hour he was seated in an arm-chair in an upstairs sitting-room, sipping his coffee. The papers lay folded at his elbow. Upon his knee, open, lay the book in which were written down the names of the patients with whom he had made appointments that day.
He looked at them, seeking for one that promised interest. The first patient was a man who would come in on his way to the city. Then followed the names of three women, then the name of a boy. He was coming with his mother, a lady of an anxious mind. The Doctor had a sheaf of letters from her. And so the morning's task was over. He turned a page and came to the afternoon.
"Two o'clock, Mrs. Lesueur; two-thirty, Miss Mendish; three, the Dean of Greystone; three-thirty, Lady Carle; four, Madame de Lys; four-thirty, Mrs. Harringby; five, Sir Henry Grebe; five-thirty, Mrs. Chepstow."
The last name was that of the last patient. Doctor Meyer Isaacson's day's work was over at six, or was supposed to be over. Often, however, he gave a patient more than the fixed half-hour, and so prolonged his labours. But no one was admitted to his house for consultation after the patient whose name was against the time of five-thirty.
And so Mrs. Chepstow would be the last patient he would see that day.
He sat for a moment with the book open on his knee, looking at her name.
It was a name very well known to him, very well known to the English-speaking world in general.
Mrs. Chepstow was a great beauty in decline. Her day of glory had been fairly long, but now it seemed to be over. She was past forty. She said she was thirty-eight, but she was over forty. Goodness, some say, keeps women fresh. Mrs. Chepstow had tried a great many means of keeping fresh, but she had omitted that. The step between æstheticism and asceticism was one which she had never taken, though she had taken many steps, some of them, unfortunately, false ones. She had been a well-born girl, the daughter of aristocratic but impecunious and extravagant parents. Her father, Everard Page, a son of Lord Cheam, had been very much at home in the Bankruptcy Court. Her mother, too, was reckless about money, saying, whenever it was mentioned, "Money is given us to spend, not to hoard." So little did she hoard it, that eventually her husband published a notice in the principal papers, stating that he would not be responsible for her debts. It was a very long time since he had been responsible for his own. Still, there was a certain dignity in the announcement, as of an honest man frankly declaring his position.