The great Potts had the unfortunate habit of gossiping about his patients with one another. He had said to Conny: "Your friend Isabelle interests me. I should say that she had a case of festering conscience." He crossed his legs and gazed wisely up at the ceiling. "A rudimentary organ left over from her hard-working ancestors. She is inhibited, tied, thinks she can't do this and that. What she needs"—Potts had found the answer to his riddle and brought his eyes from the ceiling—"is a lover! Can't you find her one?"
"Women usually prefer to select that for themselves."
"Oh, no,—one is as good as another. What she needs is a counter-irritant.
That husband of hers, what is he like?"
"Just husband, very successful, good-natured, gives her what she wants,—I should say they pull well together."
"That's it! He's one of the smooth, get-everything-the-dear-woman-wants kind, eh? And then busies himself about his old railroad? Well, it is the worst sort for her. She needs a man who will beat her."
"Is that what the lover would do?"
"Bless you, no! He would make her stop thinking she had an ache." When Conny went, the doctor came to the door with her and as he held her hand cried breezily: "Remember what I said about your friend. Look up some nice young man, who will hang around and make her think she's got a soul." He pressed Conny's hand and smiled.
CHAPTER XXVIII
When the Lanes went to Sunday luncheon at the Woodyards', the impression on Isabelle was exactly what Conny wished it to be. The little house had a distinct "atmosphere," Conny herself had an "atmosphere," and the people, who seemed much at home there and very gay, were what is termed "interesting." That is, each person had his ticket of "distinction," as Isabelle quickly found out. One was a lawyer whose name often appeared in the newspapers as counsel for powerful interests; another was a woman novelist, whose last book was then running serially in a magazine and causing discussion; a third—a small man with a boyish open face—Isabelle discovered with a thrill of delight was the Ned Silver whose clever little articles on the current drama she had read in a fashionable weekly paper.
Isabelle found her hostess leaning against the mantelpiece with the air of having just come in and discovered her guests.