“‘With one accord, that you were in love!’
“‘You have already entrapped me into a confession on that point. Chaunt, Circe!’
“‘But the accord ends there; we are not unanimous as to the charmer’s name.’
“‘Not unanimous? I don’t understand.’
“‘Well, we female doctors are agreed as to the disease, but differ as to its cause. The majority of the Faculty at Elmington assign, as the source of your trouble, Mary’s soulful eyes; but one or two, even of us, and most of the neighboring physicians, urge another name; while one or two, with the frankness so common among doctors, admit that they do not know what is the matter with you.’
“‘You surprise me! I had gathered from what you said but a moment ago, that the symptoms in my case were so pronounced as not even to require a formal diagnosis.’
“‘But doctors will differ, and when they do—’
“‘The patient must decide. Well, I have done so. But—to drop your metaphor—I cannot conceive what you mean by suggesting that I have the credit of adoring two or more young persons?’
“You may recall, Jack, that the Silent Tomb was equally perplexed on the same point, and that when I asked him ‘Mary or Lucy?’ he amazed our whole circle by bursting into a laugh. Then the wretch, in repeating the names after me, so carefully abstained from placing the accent of astonishment on either, that not even a professional piano-tuner could have detected any difference in the sounds—oh, the artesian well! I remembered this. The Don had expressed no surprise when I named Mary Rolfe; probably, then, it was the mention of Lucy that had amazed the S. T. It flashed across my female mind, in the tenth part of a second, how singularly Mr. Frobisher had acted, after the first flush of astonishment was over,—how he pursed up his brow, gazed far away, in fact, mooned around in the most absurd fashion, instead of telling me all about it at once. Would the Don, too, laugh, when I mentioned Lucy’s name?
“‘We do you that honor, at any rate,’ said I.