And that is why I am still here, though I hope to be allowed up on Friday. But lying in bed makes one so absurdly weak! What I have told you is for your ears alone. It would be altogether too much of a triumph for Spenworth. Instead of feeling any thankfulness that I had been spared the knife, he would only say... Well, you can imagine it even from the very imperfect sketch that I have given you. No, I am assured that massage makes the operation wholly unnecessary; and I am already feeling much, much better. If I have not taken the whole world into my confidence, it is partly because I detest this modern practice of discussing one's inside ("wearing one's stomach on one's sleeve," as Will rather naughtily describes it) and partly because I am altogether too humble-minded to fancy that the entire world is interested in my private affairs. When the princess asked "How did the operation go off?," I said "Excellently, thank you, ma'am." And that was what all the papers published. It was not worth while telling her that the operation was found to be unnecessary. I am not of those who feel obliged to trumpet forth that Mrs. Tom Noddy has left Gloucester Place for Eastbourne or Eastbourne for Gloucester Place. As Tennyson says, "Again--who wonders and who cares?" At the same time--I loathe Americanisms and I do conscientiously try to express myself in what I may call the English of educated society; we do not seem to have any literary equivalent for "mentality," so I must ask you to pardon the neologism--will you, to _oblige_ me, try to imagine the "mentality" of Spenworth and Brackenbury? The sister-in-law of one, the sister of the other; _casting_ about in her resourceful mind to discover any means of softening their hard hearts; clapping hand to forehead; exclaiming "I have it!"; retiring to bed; summoning the relations; making frantic appeal; exacting death-bed promises... Truly honestly, I don't think we have come to that yet... And those two men have an hereditary right... Thank goodness, neither of them knows where the House of Lords _is_! There are moments when I feel _very_ nearly a radical... But you agree that they are hardly the people I should wish to discuss my operation with. And whatever I have said to you has of course been said in confidence. II LADY ANN SPENWORTH REPUDIATES ALL RESPONSIBILITY _Lady Ann_ (_to a friend of proved discretion_): But this is as delightful as it is unexpected! If we only have the carriage to ourselves... I often say that a first-class ticket is the merest snare and delusion; during the war it has exposed one to a new order--I've no doubt they are very _brave_ and so forth and so on, but that sort of thing ought to be kept for the trenches. One doesn't want to travel with it, one certainly doesn't want to live with it...