en he sees his patients. If it's an urgent case ye
have there's lots o' good young docthors in th' neighborhood, but
Docthor Trowbridge----"

"Is he here?" the visitor demanded sharply.

"He is, an' he's afther digestin' his dinner--an' an illigant dinner
it wuz, though I do say so as shouldn't--an' he can't be
disturbed----"

"He'll see me, all right. Tell him it's Nella Bentley, and I've _got_
to talk to him!"

De Grandin raised an eyebrow eloquently. "The fish at the aquarium
have greater privacy than we, my friend," he murmured, but broke off
as the visitor came clacking down the hall on high French heels and
rushed into the study half a dozen paces in advance of my thoroughly
disapproving and more than semi-scandalized Nora.

"Doctor Trowbridge, won't you help me?" cried the girl as she fairly
leaped across the study and flung her arms about my shoulders. "I
can't tell Dad or Mother, they wouldn't understand; so you're the only
one--oh, excuse me, I thought you were alone!" Her face went crimson
as she saw de Grandin standing by the fire.

"It's quite all right, my dear," I soothed, freeing myself from her
almost hysterical clutch. "This is Doctor de Grandin, with whom I've
been associated many times; I'd be glad to have the benefit of his
advice, if you don't mind."

She gave him her hand and a wan smile as I performed the introduction,
but her eyes warmed quickly as he raised her fingers to his lips with
a soft "_Enchante, Mademoiselle_." Women, animals and children took
instinctively to Jules de Grandin.

Nella dropped her coat of silky shaven lamb and sank down on the study
couch, her slim young figure molded in her knitted dress of coral
rayon as revealingly as though she had been cased in plastic
cellulose. She has long, violet eyes and a long mouth; smooth, dark
hair parted in the middle; a small straight nose, and a small pointed
chin. Every line of her is long, but definitely feminine; breasts and
hips and throat and legs all delicately curved, without a hint of
angularity.

"I've come to see you about Ned," she volunteered as de Grandin lit
her cigarette and she sent a nervous smoke-stream gushing from between
red, trembling lips. "He--he's trying to run out on me!"

"You mean Ned Minton?" I asked, wondering what a middle-aged physician
could prescribe for wandering Romeos.

"I certainly do mean Ned Minton," she replied, "and I mean business,
too. The darn, romantic fool!"

De Grandin's s