"I do." He bent down and fumbled for the wine with a needless clatter in the ice-pail. "Agnes, for your sake, for all your sakes, I'm very, very glad!"
3
The next morning Eric called on Dr. Gaisford in Wimpole Street before going to his office. His brain felt numbed, and he had to speak with artful choice of words to prevent being tripped up by a stammer. The doctor looked once at his drawn face and pink eye-lids, then pushed a chair opposite his own and tidied away his papers.
"I suppose you have breakfasted, by the way?" he asked.
"Well, I'm not much of a breakfast-eater," Eric answered. "You must forgive a very early call, Gaisford; it's so hard for me to get away during the day. Well, it's the old trouble; I'm sleeping abominably. I took your wretched medicine, but it didn't have any effect."
"H'm. You did not take my advice to go right away."
"It hasn't been practicable so far. I may go—quite soon. But I've a certain number of things to finish off and I want to be absolutely at my best for them." He moistened his lips and repeated "I want to be absolutely at my best for them. I've been rather worried and I've lost confidence in myself."
Gaisford listened to his symptoms, asked a few questions and set about his examination. At the end he made a note in his card-index and wrote out a prescription.
"If you're not careful," he said deliberately, as he blotted it, "you'll have a bad break-down. Now, I never tell people to do things, when I know they're going to disobey me; I shan't order you to California to-day, I shan't knock you off all work. But how soon can you go?"
"Oh—a week, if I have to," Eric answered carelessly.