Part 42 (1/2)
”How-de-do?” squeaked the aged specialist amiably.
”Oh, I am well enough, thank you, doctor--except in spirits. Dr. Atwood, you were right! He _has_ got it, and I am perfectly wretched!”
”_Who_ has got _what_?” retorted the voice of Atwood.
”The unfortunate young gentleman we saw to-day in the Park.”
”What park?”
”Why, Central Park, doctor.”
”Central Park! _I_ haven't been in Central Park for ten years, my child.”
”Why, Dr. Atwood!--A--_is_ this Dr. Austin Atwood with whom I am talking?”
”Not the least doubt! And you are that pretty Dr. Hollis--Rosalind Hollis, who consulted me in those charity cases, are you not?”
”I certainly am. And I wanted to say to you that I have the unfortunate patient now under closest observation here in my own apartment. I have given him the room next to the office. And, doctor, you were perfectly right. He shows every symptom of the disease--he is even inclined to sentimentalism; he begins to blush and fidget and look at me--a--in that unmistakable manner--not that he isn't well-bred and charming--indeed he is most attractive, and it grieves me dreadfully to see that he already is beginning to believe himself in love with the first person of the opposite s.e.x he encounters--I mean that he--that I cannot mistake his att.i.tude toward me--which is perfectly correct, only one cannot avoid seeing the curious infatuation--”
”_What_ the d.i.c.kens is all this?” roared the great specialist, and Dr.
Hollis jumped.
”I was only confirming your diagnosis, doctor,” she explained meekly.
”What diagnosis?”
”Yours, doctor. I have confirmed it, I fear. And the certainty has made me perfectly miserable, because his is such a valuable life to the world, and he himself is such a splendid, wholesome, n.o.ble specimen of youth and courage, that I cannot bear to believe him incurably afflicted.”
”Good Heavens!” shouted the doctor, ”_what_ has he got and _who_ is he?”
”He is Victor Carden, the celebrated artist, and he has Lamour's Disease!” she gasped.
There was a dead silence; then: ”Keep him there until I come! Chloroform him if he attempts to escape!”
And the great specialist rang off excitedly.
So Rosalind Hollis went back to the lamp-lit office where, in a luxurious armchair, Carden was sitting, contentedly poring over the ninth volume of Lamour's great treatise and smoking his second cigar.
”Dr. Atwood is coming here,” she said in a discouraged voice, as he rose with alacrity to place her chair.
”Oh! What for?”
”T-to see you, Mr. Carden.”
”Who? Me? Great Scott! I don't want to be slapped and pinched and polled by a man! I didn't expect that, you know. I'm willing enough to have you observe me in the interest of humanity--”
”But, Mr. Carden, he is only called in for consultation. I--I have a dreadful sort of desperate hope that perhaps I may have made a mistake; that possibly I am in error.”
”No doubt you are,” he said cheerfully. ”Let me read a few more pages, Dr. Hollis, and then I think I shall be all ready to dispute my symptoms, one by one, and convince you what really is the trouble with me. And, by the way, did Dr. Atwood seem a trifle astonished when you told him about me?”
”A trifle--yes,” she said uncertainly. ”He is a very, very old man; he forgets. But he is coming.”
”Oh! And didn't he appear to recollect seeing me in the Park?”