Then logic came to his aid; and, deducing with care and patience, an earnest conviction grew within him that the dark circles under his eyes and the tottering old gentleman resembling Dr. Austin Atwood had a great deal to do with this dreadful disease which Dr. Hollis desired to study.
He looked at the charming girl beside him, and she looked back at him very sweetly, very earnestly, awaiting his decision.
For a moment he realized that she had really scared him, and in the reaction of relief an overwhelming desire to laugh seized him. He managed to suppress it, to compose himself. Then he remembered the Tracer's admonition to acquiesce in everything, do what he was told to do, not to run away, and to pay his court at the first decent opportunity.
He had no longer any desire to escape; he was quite willing to do anything she desired.
"Do you really want to study me, Dr. Hollis?" he asked, feeling like a hypocrite.
"Indeed I do," she replied fervently.
"You believe me worth studying?"
"Oh, truly, truly, you are! You don't suspect—you cannot conceive how important you have suddenly become to me."
"Then I think you had better take my case, Dr. Hollis," he said seriously. "I begin now to realize that you believe me to be a sort of freak—an afflicted curiosity, and that, in the interest of medicine, I ought to go to an asylum or submit myself to the ceaseless observation of a competent private physician."
"I—I think it best for you to place yourself in my care," she said. "Will you?"