The first suggestion that Eugene had that anything was wrong with him, aside from a growing apprehensiveness as to what the American people would think of his French work, was in the fall, when he began to imagine--or perhaps it was really true--that coffee did not agree with him. He had for several years now been free of his old-time complaint,--stomach trouble; but gradually it was beginning to reappear and he began to complain to Angela that he was feeling an irritation after his meals, that coffee came up in his throat. "I think I'll have to try tea or something else if this doesn't stop," he observed. She suggested chocolate and he changed to that, but this merely resulted in shifting the ill to another quarter. He now began to quarrel with his work--not being able to get a certain effect, and having sometimes altered and re-altered and re-re-altered a canvas until it bore little resemblance to the original arrangement, he would grow terribly discouraged; or believe that he had attained perfection at last, only to change his mind the following morning. "Now," he would say, "I think I have that thing right at last, thank heaven!" Angela would heave a sigh of relief, for she could feel instantly any distress or inability that he felt, but her joy was of short duration. In a few hours she would find him working at the same canvas changing something. He grew thinner and paler at this time and his apprehensions as to his future rapidly became morbid. "By George! Angela," he said to her one day, "it would be a bad thing for me if I were to become sick now. It's just the time that I don't want to. I want to finish this exhibition up right and then go to London. If I could do London and Chicago as I did New York I would be just about made, but if I'm going to get sick--" "Oh, you're not going to get sick, Eugene," replied Angela, "you just think you are. You want to remember that you've worked very hard this summer. And think how hard you worked last winter! You need a good rest, that's what you need. Why don't you stop after you get this exhibition ready and rest awhile? You have enough to live on for a little bit. M. Charles will probably sell a few more of those pictures, or some of those will sell and then you can wait. Don't try to go to London in the spring. Go on a walking tour or go down South or just rest awhile, anywhere,--that's what you need."