The next day was Sunday. Meyer Isaacson had no patients and no
engagements. He had deliberately kept the day free, in order that he
might study, and answer a quantity of letters. He was paying the penalty
of his great success, and was one of the hardest worked men in London.
At the beginning of the New Year he had even broken through his hitherto
inflexible rule, and now he frequently saw patients up till half-past
seven o'clock. He dined out much less than in former days, and was
seldom seen at concerts and the play. Success, like a monster, had
gripped him, was banishing pleasure from his life. He worked harder and
harder, gained ever more and more money, rose perpetually nearer to the
top of his ambition. Not long ago royalty had called him in for the
first time, and been pleased to approve both of him personally and of
his professional services. The future, no doubt, held a title for him.
All the ultra-fashionable world thronged to consult him. Even since the
Armines' departure he had gone up several rungs of the ladder. His
strong desire to "arrive"--and arrival in his mind meant far more than
it does in the minds of most men--and his acute pleasure in adding
perpetually to his fortune, drove him incessantly onward. In his few
free hours he was slowly and laboriously writing a work on poisons, the
work for which he had been preparing in Italy during his last holiday.
On this Sunday he meant to devote some hours to it. But first he would
"get through" his letters.
After a hasty breakfast, he shut himself up in his study. London seemed
strangely quiet. Even here within four walls, and without looking at the
outside world, one felt that it was Sunday; one felt also that almost
everybody was out of town. A pall of grey brooded over the city.
Isaacson turned on the electric light, stood for a moment in front of
the fire, then went over to his writing-table. The letters he intended
to answer were arranged in a pile on the right hand side of his
blotting-pad. Many of them--most of them--were from people who desired
to consult him, or from patients about their cases. These letters meant
money. Numbers of them he could answer with a printed card to which he
would only have to add a date and a name. Monotonous work, but swiftly
done, a filling up of many of the hours of his life which were near at
hand.
He sat down, took a packet of his printed engagement forms, and a pen,
put them before him, then opened one of the letters:
"4, Manton Street, Mayfair, Jan. 2.
"Dear Doctor Isaacson:
"My health," etc., etc.
He opened another:
"200, Park Lane, Jan. ----
"Dear Doctor Isaacson:
"I don't know what is the matter with me, but--" etc., etc.
He took up a third: