He looked at her with an expression of surprise. Then he asked abruptly:
"What would you advise me to do, Miss Doyle?"
A chorus of laughter greeted this question. Patsy flushed a trifle but covered her confusion by demanding: "Would you follow my advice?"
He made a little grimace. There was humor in the boy, despite his dyspepsia.
"I understand there is a law forbidding suicide," he replied. "But I asked your advice in an attempt to discover what you thought of my absurd condition. Now that you call my attention to it, I believe I am starving myself. I need stronger and more nourishing food; and yet the best specialist in your progressive country has regulated my diet."
"I don't believe much in specialists," asserted Patsy. "If you do, go ahead and kill yourself, in defiance of the law. According to common sense you ought to eat plenty of good, wholesome food, but you may be so disordered—in your interior—that even that would prove fatal. So I won't recommend it."
"I'm doomed, either way," he said quietly. "I know that."
"How do you know it?" demanded Maud in a tone of resentment.
He was silent a moment. Then he replied:
"I cannot remember how we drifted into this very personal argument. It seems wrong for me to be talking about myself to those who are practically strangers, and you will realize how unused I am to the society of ladies by considering my rudeness in this interview."