"The arm has been rather better the last few days," the patient suggested. "So perhaps it won't be necessary to repeat last week's treatment."
"Three times that treatment is repeated," said Miss Hellner inexorably. "That is the rule."
"Oh dear," Aunt Cuckoo murmured with a dolorous little giggle. "I'm afraid I'm going to have rather a painful time. But don't go away, Jasmine. It's going to hurt me very much, but it will be very interesting for you to watch. Miss Hellner is so expert."
But flattery was impotent against Miss Hellner, who by now had seized the arm and was kneading it, pinching it, digging her knuckles into it--and bony knuckles they were too--trying to tear it in half apparently with her thumbs, burrowing and boring, while all the time Aunt Cuckoo ejaculated "Ouch!" or "Ah!" and to one viciously penetrating use of the forefinger as a gimlet "Yi! Yi!"
At last Miss Hellner stopped, and Aunt Cuckoo lay back on the sofa with a sigh, occasionally giving a glance of ineffable tenderness to where her bad arm, as red as a new-born baby, lay upon her breast.
"If your arm is not well after one more treatment...."
"One more treatment," echoed Aunt Cuckoo dutifully, "Yes?"
"The oil cure?" asked the patient, pleasantly excited at the prospect of a new treatment. "What does that consist of?"
"Yes," said Aunt Cuckoo, "our bathroom is _very_ nice."
"Oh, I see," said Aunt Cuckoo with less enthusiasm. "You mean a cold bath."
"Ice bath," Miss Hellner almost shouted. "With lumps of ice to float. Then I rub you with oil of olives."
Aunt Cuckoo nodded gratefully; after the ice such a proceeding sounded luxurious.
"Then with nothing on you will do the gymnastic. Up and down the room. Backwards and forwards. So."
"Dear me, with nothing on? Absolutely nothing? Couldn't I keep a small towel?"
"Nothing on," repeated the masseuse obstinately. "Then you sit for ten minutes in the window with the fan."
"But surely not with nothing on except a fan?"
"With nothing on," the masseuse insisted. "Then----" She paused impressively, while Aunt Cuckoo looked excessively agitated, and Jasmine wondered what ultimate ordeal she was going to prescribe. Surely she could not intend to make the patient sit in the garden or drive in the brougham with nothing on?