—"Well, how are you, Mr. Lothian?"
"Much better, thanks, Doctor. I'm feeling quite fit, in fact."
"Yes, but you're not, you know. I made a complete examination of you yesterday, you remember, and now I've tabulated the results."
"Tell me then."
"If you weren't who you are, I wouldn't tell you at all, being who you are, I will."
Lothian nodded. "Fire away!" he said with his sweet smile, his great charm of manner—all the greater for the enforced abstinence of the last three days—"I shan't funk anything you tell me."
"Very well, then. Your liver is beginning—only beginning—to be enlarged. You've got a more or less permanent catarrh of the stomach, and a permanent catarrh of the throat and nasal passages from membranes inflamed by alcohol and constant cigarette smoking. And there is a hint of coming heart trouble, too."
Lothian laughed, frankly enough. "I know all that," he said. "Really, Doctor, there's nothing very dreadful in that. I'm as strong as a horse, really!"
"Yes, you are, in one way. Your constitution is a fine one. I was talking to your man-servant yesterday and I know what you are able to go through when you are shooting in the winter. I would not venture upon such risks myself even."
"Then everything is for the best, in the best of all possible worlds?" Gilbert answered lightly, feeling sure that the other would take him.