Ergo, I like Lady Kynnersley, and would put myself to much inconvenience in order to do her a service.
She kept me waiting in the drawing-room but a minute before she made her appearance, grasped my hand, proclaimed my goodness in responding so soon to her call, bade me sit down on the sofa by her side, inquired after my health, and, the gods of politeness being propitiated, plunged at once into the midst of matters.
Dale was going downhill headlong to Gadarene catastrophe.

He had no eyes or ears or thoughts for any one in the world but for a certain Lola Brandt, a brazen creature from a circus, the shape of whose limbs was the common knowledge of mankind from Dublin to Yokohama, and whose path by sea and land, from Yokohama to Dublin, was strewn with the bodies of her victims.

With this man-eating tigress, declared Lady Kynnersley, was Dale infatuated.

He scorched himself morning, noon, and night in her devastating presence.

Had cut himself adrift from home, from society.
Had left trailing about on his study table a jeweller's bill for a diamond bracelet.