My friend, Mrs. Isadore Muntz, has been very ill, poor girl.
She is always rather ill, of course; there would not otherwise be much point in being married to so rich and elderly a man as Isadore. But the illness which I now have to record was a real one—a horrid one. It involved the use of a surgeon's knife. It involved the complete collapse of Isadore, whose world-famous bill-brokery was carried on without the stimulus of his presence for nearly fourteen days.
For more than seven days of that period, it is said, he kept to his chamber, and cried without ceasing. And he admitted, between his sobs, to my aunt Elizabeth, that Sir Marmaduke Wilkins's fee for the operation had amounted to a hundred guineas, besides an additional charge of twenty guineas for the anæsthetist.
But Mrs. Isadore—Constance she used to let me call her—is getting slowly better. Because she used to let me call her Constance and because—because I am sorry for her, I went to the "At Home," which was held at West Hampstead, in order—I suppose—to celebrate the result of Sir Marmaduke Wilkins's efforts.
Less than eight weeks having elapsed since the occasion of Sir Marmaduke's skilful treatment, she was still forbidden to be very active. So she lay on a sofa, embowered with blossoms, and we rustled up and cried over her. Isadore, the faithful creature, stood fast by her right hand. This was perhaps responsible for Constance's notable depression.
It is also possible that she thought of all those low-necked gowns hanging useless on their pegs upstairs.
"You don't mean to say you've come!" Constance exclaimed when I took her hand; "I thought you hated Hampstead."
"And so I do," replied the tactful guest. "But I heard a funny story yesterday, and——"
"That's all right," she said. "I'm sick of funny stories. Tell me something tragic. Haven't you fallen in love lately?"
"Yes," I said, "and I've bought another dog."