Fox was distinctly embarrassed. "Is it absolutely necessary, Doctor?" he asked, in return. "It is difficult to arrange that—without a complete change of base," he added. "It might be done, I suppose, but I don't see how, at this minute."
"The only reason that it might be necessary," said the doctor, speaking slowly, "is that you may have neglected some symptom that is of importance, while seeming to you to be of no consequence whatever. It is always desirable to see a patient. I have to take into account, for example, the whole life history, which may be of importance—and it may not."
Fox made no answer to this, but he looked troubled and he drummed with his fingers upon his knee.
"Can't we assume the patient to be—merely for the sake of fixing our ideas—" Doctor Galen continued, looking away and searching for his example, "well—er—Professor Ladue? Or, no, he won't do, for I saw him a few days ago, in quite his usual health. Quite as usual."
"You know Professor Ladue, then, Doctor?"
"Oh, yes, I know him," the doctor replied dryly. "Well, as I said, he won't do. Let us suppose that this case were that of—er—Mrs. Ladue." The doctor looked at Fox and smiled his pleasant smile. "She will answer our purpose as well as another."
"Do you know Mrs. Ladue, too?"
"No," said Doctor Galen. "No, I have not that pleasure. But I know her husband. That," he added, "may be of more importance, in the case we have assumed—with the symptoms as you have related them."
Fox smiled very slightly. "Well, suppose that it were Mrs. Ladue, then,—as an instance. Assuming that I have given all the symptoms, what should you say was the matter with her?"
Doctor Galen did not answer for some minutes. "Well," he said at last, "assuming that you have given all the symptoms correctly—but you can't have given them all. I have no means of knowing whether there is any tendency to hardening of the walls of the arteries. How old is she?" he asked suddenly.