The length of his visits was infamous, their frequency appalling.

He kept on coming long after Miss Quincey was officially and obviously well; and on the most trivial, the most ridiculous pretexts.

It was "just to see how she was getting on," or "because he happened to be passing," or "to bring that book he told her about." He had prescribed a course of light literature for Miss Quincey and seemed to think it necessary to supply his own drugs.

To be sure he brought a great many medicines that you cannot get made up at the chemist's, insight, understanding, sympathy, the tonic of his own virile youth; and Heaven only knows if these things were not the most expensive.
All the time Miss Quincey was trying to keep up with the new standard imposed on the staff.

Hitherto she had laboured under obvious disadvantages; now, in her leisurely convalescence, sated as she was with time, she wallowed openly and wantonly in General Culture.