self in love with the first person of the
opposite sex he encounters--I mean that he--that I cannot mistake his
attitude toward me--which is perfectly correct, only one cannot avoid
seeing the curious infatuation--"

"_What_ the dickens 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, noble 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?"

"N-not clearly. He is very old, you know. But he is coming here."

"_Ex_actly--as a friend of mine puts it," smiled Carden. "May I be
permitted to use your telephone a moment?"

"By all means, Mr. Carden. You will find it there in my bedroom."

So he entered her