"Stay, my friend," he interrupted me with a firm gesture. "Before you
go any further, let me entreat you to be frank. Without absolute
candor nothing can be done. I think I am a tolerable judge of faces,
and I can read in yours the fact that my condition has puzzled you."
I paused, taken aback. It had puzzled me. I thought of all that
Rosetta Rosa had said, and I hesitated. Then I made up my mind.
"I yield," I responded. "You are not an ordinary man, and it was
absurd of me to treat you as one. Absolute candor is, as you say,
essential, and so I'll confess that your case does puzzle me. There is
no organic disease, but there is a quite unaccountable organic
weakness--a weakness which fifty broken thighs would not explain. I
must observe, and endeavor to discover the cause. In the meantime I
have only one piece of advice. You know that in certain cases we have
to tell women patients that a successful issue depends on their own
willpower: I say the same thing to you."
"Receive my thanks," he said. "You have acted as I hoped. As for the
willpower, that is another matter," and a faint smile crossed his
handsome, melancholy face.
I rose to leave. It was nearly three o'clock.
"Give me a few moments longer. I have a favor to ask."
After speaking these words he closed his eyes, as though to recall the
opening sentences of a carefully prepared speech.
"I am entirely at your service," I murmured.
"Mr. Foster," he began, "you are a young man of brilliant
accomplishments, at the commencement of your career. Doubtless you
have made your plans for the immediate future, and I feel quite sure
that those plans do not include any special attendance upon myself,
whom until the other day you had never met. I am a stranger to you,
and on the part of a stranger it would be presumptuous to ask you to
alter your plans. Nevertheless, I am at this moment capable of that
presumption. In my life I have not often made requests, but such
requests as I have made have never been refused. I hope that my good
fortune in this respect may continue. Mr. Foster, I wish to leave
England. I wish to die in my own place--"
I shrugged my shoulders in protest against the word "die."
"If you prefer it, I wish to live in my own place. Will you accompany
me as companion? I am convinced that we should suit each other--that I
should derive benefit from your skill and pleasure from your society,
while you--you would tolerate the whims and eccentricities of my
middle age. We need not discuss terms; you would merely name your
fee."