crisis on arriving at the station, and I had to sit on a luggage-truck
for four hours. I couldn't have persuaded myself to get into the saloon
carriage for a fortune! I couldn't go back home in the auto! I couldn't
walk! So I stepped into the hotel. I've been here ever since."

"But when was this?"

"Three months ago. My doctors say that in another six weeks I shall be
sufficiently recovered to leave. It is a most distressing malady. _Mais
que veux-tu?_ I have a suite in the hotel and my own servants. I walk
out here into the hall because it's so large. The hotel people do the
best they can, but of course--" He threw up his hands. His resigned,
gentle smile was at once comic and tragic to me.

"But do you mean to say you couldn't walk out of that door and go home?"
I questioned.

"Daren't!" he said, with finality. "Come to my rooms, will you, and have
some tea."

II

A little later his own valet served us with tea in a large private
drawing-room on the sixth or seventh floor, to reach which we had
climbed a thousand and one stairs; it was impossible for Octave Boissy
to use the lift, as he was convinced that he would die in it if he took
such a liberty with himself. The room was hung with modern pictures,
such as had certainly never been seen in any hotel before. Many
knick-knacks and embroideries were also obviously foreign to the hotel.