doing too much. I live so intensely, if you know
what I mean, M. Poirot?"
"Yes, yes."
"He always says to me: 'Try to be more of a
vegetable, Adeline.' But I can't. Life was meant to
be lived, I feel. As a matter of fact I wore myself
out as a girl in the war. My hospital--you've
heard of my hospital? Of course I had nurses and
matrons and all that--but I actually, ran it." She
sighed.
"Your vitality is marvelous, dear lady," said
Poirot, with the slightly mechanical air of one
responding to his cue.
Mrs. Clapperton gave a girlish laugh.
'Everyone tells me how young,I am! It's ab-surd.
I never try to pretend I'm a day less than
forty-three," she continued with slightly menda-cious
candor, "but a lot of people find it hard to
believe. 'You're so alive, Adeline,' they say to me.
But really, M. Poirot, what would one be if one
wasn't alive?"
"Dead," said Poirot.
Mrs. Clapperton frowned. The reply was not to
her liking. The man, she decided, was trying to be
funny. She got up and said coldly: "I must find
John."
As she stepped through the door she dropped
her handbag. It opened and the contents flew far
and wide. Poirot rushed gallantly to the rescue. It
was some few minutes before the lipsticks, vanity