"Unfortunately, in your case, it's not," Morton Sims replied. "You seem to forget two things about 'Candide'—that Dr. Pangloss was a failure and a fool, and that one must cultivate one's garden! Voltaire was a wise man!"
Gilbert dropped his jesting note.
"You've something to say to me," he answered, "probably a good deal more. Say it. Say anything you like, and be quite certain that I shan't be offended."
"I will. It's this, Mr. Lothian. Your stomach will go on digesting and your heart performing its functions long after your brain has gone."
Then there was silence in the sunlit bedroom.
"You think that?" Lothian said at length, in a quiet voice.
"I know it. You are on the verge of terrible nervous and mental collapse. I'm going to be brutal, but I'm going to speak the truth. Three months more of drinking as you have been of late and, for all effective purposes you go out!"
Gilbert's face flushed purple with rage.
"How dare you say such a thing to me, sir?" he cried. "How dare you tell me, tell me, that I have been drinking heavily. You are certainly wise to say it when there is no witness here!"
Morton Sims smiled sadly. He was quite unmoved by Lothian's rage. It left him cool. But when he spoke, there was a hypnotic ring in his voice which caught at the weak and tremulous will of the man upon the bed and held it down.