“Do you care for my work?” he asked, astonished and moved.
“I? Yes, of course I do. Who does not?”
“Many,” he replied simply.
“I am sorry for them,” she said.
They sat silent for a long while.
At first his overwhelming desire was to tell her of the deception practiced upon her; but he could not do that, because in exposing himself he must fail in loyalty to the Tracer of Lost Persons. Besides, she would not believe him. She would think him mad if he told her that the old gentleman she had taken for Dr. Atwood was probably Mr. Keen, the Tracer of Lost Persons. Also, he himself was not absolutely certain about it. He had merely deduced as much.
“Tell me,” he said very gently, “what is the malady from which you believe I am suffering?”
For a moment she remained silent, then, face averted, laid her finger on the book beside her.
“That,” she said unsteadily.
He read aloud: “Lamour’s Disease. A Treatise in sixteen volumes by Ero S. Lamour, M.D., M.S., F.B.A., M.F.H.”
“All that?” he asked guiltily.
“I don’t know, Mr. Carden. Are you laughing at me? Do you not believe me?” She had turned suddenly to confront him, surprising a humorous glimmer in his eyes.
“I really do not believe I am seriously ill,” he said, laughing in spite of her grave eyes.
“Then perhaps you had better read a little about what Lamour describes as the symptoms of this malady,” she said sadly.
“Is it fatal?” he inquired.
“Ultimately. That is why I desire to spend my life in studying means to combat it. That is why I desire you so earnestly to place yourself under my observation and let me try.”
“Tell me one thing,” he said; “is it contagious? Is it infectious? No? Then I don’t mind your studying me all you wish, Dr. Hollis. You may take my temperature every ten minutes if you care to. You may observe my pulse every five minutes if you desire. Only please tell me how this is to be accomplished; because, you see, I live in the Sherwood Studio Building, and you live on Madison Avenue.”
“I — I have a ward — a room — fitted up with every modern surgical device — every improvement,” she said. “It adjoins my office. Would you mind living there for a while — say for a week at first — until I can be perfectly certain in my diagnosis?”
“Do you intend to put me to bed?” he asked, appalled.
“Oh, no! Only I wish to watch you carefully and note your symptoms from moment to moment. I also desire to try the effects of certain medicines on you—”
“What kind of medicines?” he asked uneasily.
“I cannot tell yet. Perhaps antitoxin; I don’t know; perhaps formalin later. Truly, Mr. Carden, this case has taken on a graver, a more intimate significance since I have learned who you are. I would have worked hard to save any life; I shall put my very heart and soul into my work to save you, who have done so much for us all.”
The trace of innocent emotion in her voice moved him.
“I am really not ill,” he said unsteadily. “I cannot let you think I am—”
“Don’t speak that way, Mr. Carden. I — I am perfectly miserable over it; I don’t feel any happiness in my discovery now — not the least bit. I had rather live my entire life without seeing one case of Lamour’s Disease than to believe you are afflicted with it.”
“But I’m not, Miss Hollis! — really, I am not—”
She looked at him compassionately for a moment, then rose.
“It is best that you should be informed as to your probable condition,” she said. “In Lamour’s works, volume nine, you had better read exactly what Lamour says. Do you mind coming to the office with me, Mr. Carden?”
“Now?”
“Yes. The book is there. Do you mind coming?”
“No — no, of course not.” And, as they turned away together under the trees: “You don’t intend to begin observing me this afternoon, do you?” he ventured.
“I think it best if you can arrange your affairs. Can you, Mr. Carden?”
“Why, yes, I suppose I can. Did you mean for me to begin to occupy that surgical bedroom at once?”
“Do you mind?”
“N-no. I’ll telephone my servants to pack a steamer trunk and send it around to your apartment this evening. And — where am I to board?”
“I have a dining room,” she said simply. “My apartment consists of the usual number of servants and rooms, including my office, and my observation ward which you will occupy.”
He walked on, troubled.
“I only w-want to ask one or two things, Dr. Hollis. Am I to be placed on a diet? I hate diets!”
“Not at once.”
“May I smoke?”
“Certainly,” she said, smiling.
“And you won’t p-put me — send me to bed too early?”
“Oh, no! The later you sit up the better, because I shall wish to take your temperature every ten minutes and I shall feel very sorry to arouse you.”
“You mean you are coming in to wake me up every ten minutes and put that tube in my mouth?” he asked, aghast.
“Only every half-hour, Mr. Carden. Can’t you stand it for a week?”
“Well,” he said, “I — I suppose I can if you can. Only, upon my honor, there is really nothing the matter with me, and I’ll prove it to you out of your own book.”
“I wish you could, Mr. Carden. I should be only too happy to give you back to the world with a clear bill of health if you can convince me I am wrong. Do you not believe me? Indeed, indeed I am not selfish and wicked enough to wish you this illness, no matter how rare it is!”
“The rarer a disease is the madder it makes people who contract it,” he said. “I should be the maddest man in Manhattan if I really did have Lamour’s malady. But I haven’t. There is only one malady afflicting me, and I am waiting for a suitable opportunity to tell you all about it, but—”
“Tell me now,” she said, raising her eyes to his.
“Not now.”
“To-night?”
“I hope so. I will if I can, Miss Hollis.”
“But you must not fear to tell a physician about anything which troubles you, Mr. Carden.”
“I’ll remember that,” he said thoughtfully, as they emerged from the Park and crossed to Madison Avenue.
A moment later he hailed a car and they both entered.
CHAPTER XXIV
No, there could be no longer any doubt in her mind as she went into her bedroom, closed the door, and, unhooking the telephone receiver, called up the great specialist in rare diseases, Dr. Austin Atwood, M.S., F.B.A., M.F.H.
“Dr. Atwood,” she said with scarcely concealed emotion, “this is Dr. Rosalind Hollis.”
“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 beg
inning to believe himself 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.”
“Exactly — 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 pretty bedroom and, closing the door tightly, called up the Tracer of Lost Persons.
“Is that you, Mr. Keen? This is Mr. Carden. I’m head over heels in love. I simply must win her, and I’m going to try. If I don’t — if she will not listen to me — I’ll certainly go to smash. And what I want you to do is to prevent Atwood from butting in. Do you understand? . . . Yes, Dr. Austin Atwood. Keep him away somehow. . . . Yes, I’m here, at Dr. Hollis’s apartments, under anxious observation. . . . She is the only woman in the world! I’m mad about her — and getting madder every moment! She is the most perfectly splendid specimen of womanhood — what? Oh, yes; I rang you up to ask you whether it was you in the Park to-day? — that old gentleman — What! Yes, in Central Park. Yes, this afternoon! No, he didn’t resemble you; and Dr. Hollis took him for Dr. Atwood. . . . What are you laughing about? . . . I can hear you laughing. . . . Was it you? . . . What do I think? Why, I don’t know exactly what to think, but I suppose it must have been you. Was it? . . . Oh, I see. You don’t wish me to know. Certainly, you are quite right. Your clients have no business behind the scenes. I only asked out of curiosity. . . . All right. Good-by.”
He came back to the lamp-lit office, which was more of a big, handsome, comfortable living room than a physician’s quarters, and for a moment or two he stood on the threshold, looking around.
In the pleasant, subdued light of the lamp Rosalind Hollis looked up and around, smiling involuntarily to see him standing there; then, serious, silent, she dropped her eyes to the pages of the volume he had discarded — volume nine of Lamour’s great works.
Even with the evidence before her, corroborated in these inexorably scientific pages which she sat so sadly turning, she found it almost impossible to believe that this big, broad-shouldered, attractive young man could be fatally stricken.
Twice her violet eyes stole toward him; twice the thick lashes veiled them, and the printed pages on her knee sprang into view, and the cold precision of the type confirmed her fears remorselessly:
“The trained scrutiny of the observer will detect in the victim of this disease a peculiar and indefinable charm — a strange symmetry which, on closer examination, reveals traces of physical beauty almost superhuman—”
Again her eyes were lifted to Carden; again she dropped her white lids. Her worst fears were confirmed.
Meanwhile he stood on the threshold looking at her, his pulses racing, his very soul staring through his eyes; and, within him, every sense clamoring out revolt at the deception, demanding confession and its penalty.
“I can’t stand this!” he blurted out; and she looked up quickly, her face blanched with foreboding.
“Are you in pain?” she asked.
“No — not that sort of pain! I — won’t you please believe that I am not ill? I’m imposing on you. I’m an impostor! There’s nothing whatever the trouble with me except — something that I want to tell you — if you’ll let me—”
“Why should you hesitate to confide in a physician, Mr. Carden?”
He came forward slowly. She laid her small hand on the empty chair which faced hers and he sank into it, clasping his restless hands under his chin.
“You are feeling depressed,” she said gently. Depression was a significant symptom. Three chapters were devoted to it.
“I’m depressed, of course. I’m horribly depressed and ashamed of myself, because there is nothing on earth the matter with me, and I’ve let you think there is.”
She smiled mournfully; this was another symptom of a morbid state. She turned, unconsciously, to page 379 to verify her observation.
“See here, Miss Hollis,” he broke out, “haven’t I any chance to convince you that I am not ill? I want to be honest without involving a — a friend of mine. I can’t endure this deception. Won’t you let me prove to you that these symptoms are — are only significant of something else?”
She looked straight at him, considering him in silence.
“Let us begin with those dark circles under my eyes,” he said desperately. “I found some cold-cream in my room and — look! They are practically gone! At any rate, if there is a sort of shadow left it’s because I use my eyes in my profession.”
“Dr. Lamour says that the dark circles disappear, anyway,” said the girl, unconvinced. “Cold-cream had nothing to do with it.”
“But it did! Really it did. And as for the other symptoms, I — well, I can’t help my pulses when y-you t-t-touch me.”
“Please, Mr. Carden.”
“I don’t mean to be impertinent. I am trying my hardest to tell the truth. And my pulses do gallop when you test them; they’re galloping now! This very moment!”
“Let me try them,” she said coolly, laying her hand on his wrist.
“Didn’t I say so!” he insisted grimly. “And I’m turning red, too. But those symptoms mean something else; they mean you!”
“Mr. Carden!”
“I can’t help saying so—”
“I know it,” she said soothingly; “these sentimental outbursts are part of the disease—”
“Good Heavens! Won’t you try to believe me! There’s nothing in the world the matter with me except that I am — am — p-p-perfectly f-f-fascinated—”
“You must struggle against it, Mr. Carden. That is only part of the—”
“It isn’t! It isn’t! It’s you! It’s your mere pr
esence, your personality, your charm, your beauty, your loveliness, your—”
“Mr. Carden, I beg of you! I — it is part of my duty to observe symptoms, but — but you are making it very hard for me — very difficult—”
“I am only proving to you that it isn’t Lamour’s Disease which does stunts with my pulses, my temperature, my color. I’m not morbid except when I realize my deception. I’m not depressed except when I think how far you are from me — how far above me — how far out of reach of such a man as I am — how desperately I — I—”
“D-don’t you think I had better administer a s-s-sedative, Mr. Carden?” she said, distressed.
“I don’t care. I’ll take anything you give me — as long as you give it to me. I’ll swallow pint after pint of pills! I’ll fletcherize ‘em! I’ll luxuriate in poison — anything—”
She was hastily running through the pages of the ninth volume to see whether the symptoms of sentimental excitement ever turned into frenzy.
“What can you learn from that book?” he insisted, leaning forward to see what she was reading. “Anyway, Dr. Lamour married his patient so early in the game that all the symptoms disappeared. And I believe the trouble with his patient was my trouble. She had every symptom of it until he married her! She was in love with him, that is absolutely all!”
Rosalind Hollis raised her beautiful, incredulous eyes.
“What do you mean, Mr. Carden?”
“I mean that, in my opinion, there’s no such disease as Lamour’s Disease. That young girl was in love with him. Then he married her at last, and — presto! — all the symptoms vanished — the pulse, the temperature, the fidgets, the blushes, the moods, the whole business!”
“W-what about the strangely curious manifestations of physical beauty — superhuman symmetry, Mr. Carden?”
“Do you notice them in me?” he gasped.
“A — yes — in a m-modified measure—”
“In me?”
“Certainly!” she said firmly; but the slow glow suffusing her cheeks was disconcerting her. Then his own face began to reflect the splendid color in hers; their eyes met, dismayed.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 278
