oking the Doctor
deeply in the eyes, and as he paused, the perspiration stood out upon
his scarred forehead, and pink splotches appeared there and the veins of
his temples were big and blue. The Doctor turned away his eyes and said
coldly: "There's Laura--Tom--Laura and little Lila."

"Yes," he groaned, rising. "There are Laura and Lila."

He thrust his hands deeply into his pockets and looked down at the
Doctor and sneered. "There's the trap that snapped and took a paw, and
I'm supposed to lick it and love it and to cherish it."

He shuddered, and continued: "For once I'll speak and tell it all. I'll
not be a hypocrite in this hour, though ever after I may lie and cringe.
There are Laura and Lila and here am I. And out beyond is the wind in
the elms and the sunshine upon the grass and the moving odor of
flowers--flowers that are blushing with the joy of nature in her great
perennial romance--and there's Laura and Lila and here am I."

His passion was ebbing; his face was hardening into its wonted vain,
artificial contour, his eyes were losing their dilation, and he was
sitting rather limply in his chair, staring into space. The Doctor came
at him.

"You're a fool. You had your fling; you're along in your thirties,
nearly forty now and it's time to stop." The younger man could not
regain the height, but he could hide under his crust. So he parried back
suavely, with insolence in his voice:

"Why stop at thirty--or even forty? Why stop at all?"

"Let me tell you something, Tom," returned the Doctor. "It's all very
fine to talk this way; but this thing has become a fixed habit, just
like the whiskey habit; and in fifteen or twenty years more you'll be a
chronic, physical, degenerate man. You'll lose your self-respect. You'll
lose your quick wits, and your whole mind and body will be burning up
with a slow fire."

"Oh, you dear old fossil," replied Van Dorn in a hollow, dead voice,
rising and patting his tie and adjusting his coat and collar, "I'm no
fool. I know what I'm doing. I know how far to go, and when to stop. But
this game is interesting; and I'm only a man," he straightened up again,
patted his mustache, and again tipped his hat into a cockey angle over
his forehead, and went on, "not a monk." He smiled, pivoted on his heel
nervously and went on, "And what is more I can take care of myself."

"Tom," cried the Doctor in his treble, with excitement in his voice,
"you can't take care of yourself. No man ev