For the first six weeks that Ashenden was at the sanatorium he stayed in bed.
He saw nobody but the doctor who visited him morning and evening, the nurses who looked after him and the maid who brought him his meals.
He had contracted tuberculosis of the lungs and since at the time there were reasons that made it difficult for him to go to Switzerland the specialist he saw in London had sent him up to a sanatorium in the north of Scotland.
At last the day came that he had been patiently looking forward to when the doctor told him he could get up; and in the afternoon his nurse, having helped him to dress, took him down to the veranda, placed cushions behind him, wrapped him up in rugs and left him to enjoy the sun that was streaming down from a cloudless sky.
It was mid-winter.
The sanatorium stood on the top of a hill and from it you had a spacious view of the snow-clad country.
There were people lying all along the veranda in deck-chairs, some chatting with their neighbours and some reading.
Every now and then one would have a fit of coughing and you noticed that at the end of it he looked anxiously at his handkerchief.
Before the nurse left Ashenden she turned with a kind of professional briskness to the man who was lying in the next chair.
'I want to introduce Mr Ashenden to you,' she said.
And then to Ashenden: 'This is Mr McLeod.
He and Mr Campbell have been here longer than anyone else.'
On the other side of Ashenden was lying a pretty girl, with red hair and bright blue eyes; she had on no make-up, but her lips were very red and the colour on her cheeks was high.
It emphasized the astonishing whiteness of her skin.
It was lovely even when you realized that its delicate texture was due to illness.
She wore a fur coat and was wrapped up in rugs, so that you could see nothing of her body, but her face was extremely thin, so thin that it made her nose, which wasn't really large, look a trifle prominent.
She gave Ashenden a friendly look, but did not speak, and Ashenden, feeling rather shy among all those strange people, waited to be spoken to.
'First time they've let you get up, is it?' said McLeod.
'Yes.'
'Where's your room?'
Ashenden told him.
'Small.
I know every room in the place.
I've been here for seventeen years.
I've got the best room here and so I damned well ought to have.
Campbell's been trying to get me out of it, he wants it himself, but I'm not going to budge; I've got a right to it, I came here six months before he did.'
McLeod, lying there, gave you the impression that he was immensely tall; his skin was stretched tight over his bones, his cheeks and temples hollow, so that you could see the formation of his skull under it; and in that emaciated face, with its great bony nose, the eyes were preternaturally large.
'Seventeen years is a long time,' said Ashenden, because he could think of nothing else to say.
'Time passes very quickly.
I like it here.
At first, after a year or two, I went away in the summer, but I don't any more.
It's my home now.
I've got a brother and two sisters; but they're married and now they've got families; they don't want me.
When you've been here a few years and you go back to ordinary life, you feel a bit out of it, you know.
Your pals have gone their own ways and you've got nothing in common with them any more.
If all seems an awful rush.
Much ado about nothing, that's what it is.
It's noisy and stuffy.
No, one's better off here.
I shan't stir again till they carry me out feet first in my coffin.'
The specialist had told Ashenden that if he took care of himself for a reasonable time he would get well, and he looked at McLeod with curiosity.
'What do you do with yourself all day long?' he asked.
'Do?
Having TB is a whole time job, my boy.
There's my temperature to take and then I weigh myself.
I don't hurry over my dressing.
I have breakfast, I read the papers and go for a walk.
Then I have my rest.
I lunch and play bridge. I have another rest and then I dine.
I play a bit more bridge and I go to bed.