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?"