“You see,” he explained to Winn, “when you can’t sleep, you keep coming up to the point of dying. It’s very odd, the point of dying, a kind of collapsishness that won’t collapse. You say to yourself, ‘I can’t feel any colder than this,’ or, ‘I must have more breath,’ or, ‘This lung is bound to go if I cough much more.’ And the funny part of it is, you do go on getting colder, and your breath breaks like a rotten thread, and you never stop coughing, and yet you don’t go! I dare say I shall be quite surprised when I do. Then when you come in and give me warm, dry sheets and something hot to drink, something comes back. I suppose it’s life force; but not much — never as much as when I started the collapse. I’m getting weaker every hour; don’t you notice it? I never approved of all this lying in bed. I shall speak to Dr. Gurnet about it to-morrow.”
Winn had noticed it; he came and sat down by Mr. Bouncing’s bed.
“Snowy weather,” he suggested, “takes the life out of you.”
Mr. Bouncing ignored this theory.
“I hear,” he went on, “that you and your new friend have changed your table. You don’t sit with the Rivers any more.”
“No,” said Winn, laconically; “table isn’t big enough.”
“I expect they eat too fast,” Mr. Bouncing continued; “young people almost always eat too fast. You’ll digest better at another table. You look to me as if you had indigestion now.”
Winn shook his head.
“Look here, Bouncing,” he said earnestly, “I’m going off to St. Moritz next week to have a look at the Cresta; I wish you’d have a nurse. Drummond will run in and give an eye to you, of course; but you’re pretty seedy, and that’s a fact. I don’t like leaving you alone.”
“Next week,” said Mr. Bouncing, thoughtfully. “Well, I dare say I shall be ready by then. It would be a pity, when I’ve just got you into the way of doing things properly, to have to teach them all over again to somebody else. I’m really not quite strong enough for that kind of thing. But I’m not going to have a nurse. Oh, dear, no! Nurses deceive you and cheer you up. I don’t feel well enough to be cheered up. I like somebody who is thoroughly depressed himself, as you are, you know. I dare say you think I notice nothing lying here, but I’ve noticed that you’re thoroughly depressed. Have you quarreled with your friend? It’s odd you rush off to St. Moritz alone just when he’s arrived.”