For a moment his thoughts turned from hatred to Marcia. A receding vision, “the lands of Dream among,” hopelessly beyond the reach of a Failure. Inexpressibly old, Mr. Jeremy Robson wrote “Finis” upon the scroll of his fate and sat up in bed the better to contemplate the wreckage which had been himself. Immediately things began to revolve in his head. Wheels. Andrew Galpin’s wheels. Wheels of all sizes and brutally distorted shapes whirling in counter-directions with an imbecile and nauseous suavity, weaving into unendurable patterns the warp and woof of his comprehensive hatred.
“Bosh!” said Jeremy Robson. He stood up and promptly fell down.
“Too much pressure,” pronounced Doc Summerfield, arriving at speed. “You stop, young man, or you’ll be stopped.”
“Give me something to steady me up,” begged Jeremy. “I’ve got to go to the office to-day!”
“Have you?” returned the physician grimly. “Drink this.”
Sleep descended powerfully upon Jeremy, blotting out hatreds and worries and all other considerations for the time. It held him in its toils for successive days and nights; how many he could not have told. Once he woke up, quite clear in his head, and looked out across a broad piazza, through elms and shrubbery upon the crested lake, and was about to congratulate himself upon his recovery (though he could not quite figure out to what pleasant spot he had been translated) when Mrs. Montrose Clark came into the room—which was, of course, delirium—and asked him how he felt and whether he was hungry. Later Doc Summerfield arrived, declined to explain, said, “Drink this” (he was always and forever saying, “Drink this”) “and I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.”
So, on the morrow—or it might have been the following century for all Jeremy knew—Doc Summerfield came back and delivered a syncopated monologue:
“Yes. You are at Mr. Montrose Clark’s cottage.... No; you certainly can’t go home. Don’t be a jackass!... No; the paper has n’t gone up. It’s doing very well without you.... No; of course you’re not going down to the office. Don’t be a fool!... Heart? No; it isn’t your heart. It’s nerves. Overwork. That’s all. Don’t be a ninny.... Certainly you’ll be all right. In a few days, if you’ll behave yourself and not act like a blithering simpleton.... Drink this.”
What seemed to Jeremy so long and uncertain a period was, in reality, only a little over a week. Came a day when the Montrose Clarks sent him out for a ride with their chauffeur, otherwise unattended, and he prevailed upon that guileless youth to take him to the office.
“Don’t wait. I’ll telephone,” said he, and made for his den.