“Backache, sideache, shoulderache, headache, sensation of handcuffs on wrists, balls and chains on ankles, lack of appetite, and insomnia.”
“Is that all? Haven’t you any disease?”
“I believe not,” I answered humbly, “but the effect is the same as if I had. Why are you here?” I asked in return, as I looked admiringly at her shining brown hair, plump, rosy cheeks, and dancing eyes.
“I came here, so to speak, in response to an ideal; not my ideal—I never have any—but Laura Simonds’s. She is my dearest friend and one of the noblest girls you ever knew. She said the separation from the world would do us both good, and so it might if she could have stayed to keep me company. Now she has the world and I have the separation.”
“She isn’t here, then?”
“No, worse luck! She is always working and planning for the good of others, but she is constantly meeting with ingratitude and misunderstanding. She had just brought me here when she was telegraphed for to turn about and go home. You see she had sent two ailing slum children to be taken care of at her house, and it proved to be scarlet fever, and, of course, her stepmother took it the first thing—she’s a hateful person and takes everything she can get—and then the cook followed suit. Now they blame Laura and she has to find trained nurses and settle everything before she comes back to me.”
“Then you’re not an invalid? I thought you were in pain and couldn’t reach the bell. That’s the reason I looked in.”
“Oh, dear, no, I was only yawning! I came for what Laura calls the healing influence of solitude, but Laura thought as the place was so expensive, and treatment was included, we’d better take Turkish baths, massage, and electricity, they’re so good for the complexion. I have a little table to myself in the convalescents’ dining-room and haven’t made any acquaintances. I can’t stand their sweetbread complexions and their double chins. The patients are all so fat they might sing Isaac Watts’ hymn in unison: ‘Much of my time has run to waist.’”
“It is not an inspiring assemblage,” I agreed, “though I haven’t seen them all together, as you have.”
“And they think of nothing but themselves, which is exactly what I want to think about—myself, I mean. There’s one charming girl on this floor. Something’s the matter with her solar plexus and they won’t allow her to talk, so we have had some nice conversations in the silent hour. They’ve told me now I mustn’t call again; it seems that I was too exciting. Tell me something about yourself, Vashti—I am sure that’s your name, or Semiramis or Zenobia or Judith, and if it isn’t one or another of those I don’t want to hear what it is, for you wouldn’t look like it.”