No, there could be no longer any doubt in her mind as she went into her
bedroom, closed the door, and, unhooking the telephone receiver, called
up the great specialist in rare diseases, Dr. Austin Atwood, M.S.,
F.B.A., M.F.H.
"Dr. Atwood," she said with scarcely concealed emotion, "this is Dr.
Rosalind Hollis."
"How-de-do?" squeaked the aged specialist amiably.
"Oh, I am well enough, thank you, doctor--except in spirits. Dr. Atwood,
you were right! He _has_ got it, and I am perfectly wretched!"
"_Who_ has got _what_?" retorted the voice of Atwood.
"The unfortunate young gentleman we saw to-day in the Park."
"What park?"
"Why, Central Park, doctor."
"Central Park! _I_ haven't been in Central Park for ten years, my
child."
"Why, Dr. Atwood!--A--_is_ this Dr. Austin Atwood with whom I am
talking?"
"Not the least doubt! And you are that pretty Dr. Hollis--Rosalind
Hollis, who consulted me in those charity cases, are you not?"
"I certainly am. And I wanted to say to you that I have the unfortunate
patient now under closest observation here in my own apartment. I have
given him the room next to the office. And, doctor, you were perfectly
right. He shows every symptom of the disease--he is even inclined to
sentimentalism; he begins to blush and fidget and look at me--a--in that
unmistakable manner--not that he isn't well-bred and charming--indeed he
is most attractive, and it grieves me dreadfully to see that he already
is beginning to believe himself in love with the first person of the
opposite sex he encounters--I mean that he--that I cannot mistake his
attitude toward me--which is perfectly correct, only one cannot avoid
seeing the curious infatuation--"
"_What_ the dickens is all this?" roared the great specialist, and Dr.
Hollis jumped.
"I was only confirming your diagnosis, doctor," she explained meekly.
"What diagnosis?"
"Yours, doctor. I have confirmed it, I fear. And the certainty has made
me perfectly miserable, because his is such a valuable life to the
world, and he himself is such a splendid, wholesome, noble specimen of
youth and courage, that I cannot bear to believe him incurably
afflicted."
"Good Heavens!" shouted the doctor, "_what_ has he got and _who_ is he?"
"He is Victor Carden, the celebrated artist, and he has Lamour's
Disease!" she gasped.
There was a dead silence; then: "Keep him there until I come! Chloroform
him if he attempts to escape!"
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?"
"N-not clearly. He is very old, you know. But he is coming here."
"_Ex_actly--as a friend of mine puts it," smiled Carden. "May I be
permitted to use your telephone a moment?"
"By all means, Mr. Carden. You will find it there in my bedroom."
So he entered her pretty bedroom and, closing the door tightly, called
up the Tracer of Lost Persons.
"Is that you, Mr. Keen? This is Mr. Carden. I'm head over heels in love.
I simply must win her, and I'm going to try. If I don't--if she will
not listen to me--I'll certainly go to smash. And what I want you to do
is to prevent Atwood from butting in. Do you understand? . . . Yes, Dr.
Austin Atwood. Keep him away somehow. . . . Yes, I'm here, at Dr.
Hollis's apartments, under anxious observation. . . . She is the _only_
woman in the world! I'm mad about her--and getting madder every moment!
She is the most perfectly splendid specimen of womanhood--_what_? Oh,
yes; I rang you up to ask you whether it was _you_ in the Park
to-day?--that old gentleman--_What!_ Yes, in Central Park. Yes, this
afternoon! No, he didn't resemble you; and Dr. Hollis took him for Dr.
Atwood. . . . What are you laughing about? . . . I can _hear_ you
laughing. . . . _Was_ it you? . . . What do I think? Why, I don't know
exactly what to think, but I suppose it must have been you. Was it?
. . . Oh, I see. You don't wish me to know. Certainly, you are quite
right. Your clients have no business behind the scenes. I only asked out
of curiosity. . . . All right. Good-by."
He came back to the lamp-lit office, which was more of a big, handsome,
comfortable living room than a physician's quarters, and for a moment or
two he stood on the threshold, looking around.
In the pleasant, subdued light of the lamp Rosalind Hollis looked up
and around, smiling involuntarily to see him standing there; then,
serious, silent, she dropped her eyes to the pages of the volume he had
discarded--volume nine of Lamour's great works.
Even with the evidence before her, corroborated in these inexorably
scientific pages which she sat so sadly turning, she found it almost
impossible to believe that this big, broad-shouldered, attractive young
man could be fatally stricken.
Twice her violet eyes stole toward him; twice the thick lashes veiled
them, and the printed pages on her knee sprang into view, and the cold
precision of the type confirmed her fears remorselessly:
"The trained scrutiny of the observer will detect in the victim of this
disease a peculiar and indefinable charm--a strange symmetry which, on
closer examination, reveals traces of physical beauty almost
superhuman--"
Again her eyes were lifted to Carden; again she dropped her white lids.
Her worst fears were confirmed.
Meanwhile he stood on the threshold looking at her, his pulses racing,
his very soul staring through his eyes; and, within him, every sense
clamoring out revolt at the deception, demanding confession and its
penalty.
"I can't stand this!" he blurted out; and she looked up quickly, her
face blanched with foreboding.
"Are you in pain?" she asked.
"No--not that sort of pain! I--_won't_ you please believe that I am not
ill? I'm imposing on you. I'm an impostor! There's nothing whatever the
trouble with me except--something that I want to tell you--if you'll let
me--"
"Why should you hesitate to confide in a physician, Mr. Carden?"
He came forward slowly. She laid her small hand on the empty chair which
faced hers and he sank into it, clasping his restless hands under his
chin.
"You are feeling depressed," she said gently. Depression was a
significant symptom. Three chapters were devoted to it.
"I'm depressed, of course. I'm horribly depressed and ashamed of myself,
because there is nothing on earth the matter with me, and I've let you
think there is."
She smiled mournfully; this was another symptom of a morbid state. She
turned, unconsciously, to page 379 to verify her observation.
"See here, Miss Hollis," he broke out, "haven't I any chance to
convince you that I am not ill? I want to be honest without involving
a--a friend of mine. I can't endure this deception. Won't you let me
prove to you that these symptoms are--are only significant of something
else?"
She looked straight at him, considering him in silence.
"Let us begin with those dark circles under my eyes," he said
desperately. "I found some cold-cream in my room and--look! They are
practically gone! At any rate, if there is a sort of shadow left it's
because I use my eyes in my profession."
"Dr. Lamour says that the dark circles disappear, anyway," said the
girl, unconvinced. "Cold-cream had nothing to do with it."
"But it _did_! Really it did. And as for the other symptoms, I--well, I
can't help my pulses when y-you t-t-touch me."
"Please, Mr. Carden."
"I don't mean to be impertinent. I am trying my hardest to tell the
truth. And my pulses _do_ gallop when you test them; they're galloping
now! This very moment!"
"Let me try them," she said coolly, laying her hand on his wrist.
"Didn't I say so!" he insisted grimly. "And I'm turning red, too. But
those symptoms mean something else; they mean _you_!"
"Mr. Carden!"
"I can't help saying so--"
"I know it," she said soothingly; "these sentimental outbursts are part
of the disease--"
"Good Heavens! _Won't_ you try to believe me! There's nothing in the
world the matter with me except that I am--am--p-p-perfectly
f-f-fascinated--"
"You must struggle against it, Mr. Carden. That is only part of the--"
"It isn't! It isn't! It's you! It's your mere presence, your
personality, your charm, your beauty, your loveliness, your--"
"Mr. Carden, I beg of you! I--it is part of my duty to observe symptoms,
but--but you are making it very hard for me--very difficult--"
"I am only proving to you that it isn't Lamour's Disease which does
stunts with my pulses, my temperature, my color. I'm not morbid except
when I realize my deception. I'm not depressed except when I think how
far you are from me--how far above me--how far out of reach of such a
man as I am--how desperately I--I--"
"D-don't you think I had better administer a s-s-sedative, Mr. Carden?"
she said, distressed.
"I don't care. I'll take anything you give me--as long as _you_ give it
to me. I'll swallow pint after pint of pills! I'll fletcherize 'em! I'll
luxuriate in poison--anything--"
She was hastily running through the pages of the ninth volume to see
whether the symptoms of sentimental excitement ever turned into frenzy.
"What can you learn from that book?" he insisted, leaning forward to see
what she was reading. "Anyway, Dr. Lamour married his patient so early
in the game that all the symptoms disappeared. And I believe the trouble
with his patient was my trouble. She had every symptom of it until he
married her! She was in love with him, that is absolutely all!"
Rosalind Hollis raised her beautiful, incredulous eyes.
"What do you mean, Mr. Carden?"
"I mean that, in my opinion, there's no such disease as Lamour's
Disease. That young girl was in love with him. Then he married her at
last, and--presto!--all the symptoms vanished--the pulse, the
temperature, the fidgets, the blushes, the moods, the whole business!"
"W-what about the strangely curious manifestations of physical
beauty--superhuman symmetry, Mr. Carden?"
"Do you notice them in _me_?" he gasped.
"A--yes--in a m-modified measure--"
"In _me_?"
"Certainly!" she said firmly; but the slow glow suffusing her cheeks was
disconcerting her. Then his own face began to reflect the splendid color
in hers; their eyes met, dismayed.
"There are sixteen volumes about this disease," she said. "There _must_
be such a disease!"
"There is," he said. "I have it badly. But I never had it before I first
saw you in the Park!"
"Mr. Carden--this is the wildest absurdity--"
"I know it. Wildness is a symptom. I'm mad as a hatter. I've got every
separate symptom, and I wish it was infectious and contagious and
catching and fatal!"
She made an effort to turn the pages to the chapter entitled "Manias and
Illusions," but he laid his hand across the book and his clear eyes
defied her.
"Mr. Carden--"
Her smooth hand trembled under his, then, suddenly nerveless, relaxed.
With an effort she lifted her head; their eyes met, spellbound.
"_You_ have _every_ symptom," he said unsteadily--"every one! What have
you to say?"
Her fascinated eyes held his.
"What have you to say?" he repeated under his breath--"you, with every
symptom, and your heavenly radiant beauty to confirm them--that splendid
youthful loveliness which blinds and stuns me as I look--as I speak--as
I tell you that I love you. That is my malady; that is the beginning and
the end of it; love!"
She sat speechless, immovable, as one under enchantment.
"All my life," he said, "I have spent in painting shadows. But the
shadows were those dim celestial shapes cast by your presence in the
world. You tell me that the world is better for my work; that I have
offered my people beauty and a sort of truth, which they had never
dreamed of until I revealed it? Yet what inspired me was the shadow
only, for I had never seen the substance; I had never believed I should
ever see the living source of the shadows which inspired me. And now I
see; now I have seen with my own eyes. Now the confession of faith is no
longer a blind creed, born of instinct. You live! You are you! What I
believed from necessity I find proved in fact. The occult no longer can
sway one who has seen. And you, who, without your knowledge or mine,
have always been the one and only source of any good in me or in my
work--why is it strange that I loved you at first sight?--that I
worshiped you at first breath?--I, who, like him who raises his altar to
'the unknown god,' raised my altar to truth and beauty? And a miracle
has answered me."
She rose, the beautiful dazed eyes meeting his, both hands clasping the
ninth volume of Lamour's great monograph to her breast as though to
protect it from him--from him who was threatening her, enthralling her,
thrilling her with his magic voice, his enchanted youth, the masterful
mystery of his eyes. What was he saying to her? What was this mounting
intoxication sweeping her senses--this delicious menace threatening her
very will? What did he want with her? What was he asking? What was he
doing now--with both her hands in his, and her gaze deeply lost in
his--and the ninth volume of Lamour on the floor between them, sprawling
there, abandoned, waving its helpless, discredited leaves in
air--discredited, abandoned, obsolete as her own specialty--her life's
work! He had taken that, too--taken her life's work from her. And in
return she was holding nothing!--nothing except a young man's
hands--strong, muscular hands which, after all, were holding her own
imprisoned. So she had nothing in exchange for the ninth volume of
Lamour; and her life's work had been annihilated by a smile; and she was
very much alone in the world--very isolated and very youthful.
After a while she emerged from the chaos of attempted reflection and
listened to what he was saying. He spoke very quietly, very distinctly,
not sparing himself, laying bare every deception without involving
anybody except himself.
He told her the entire history of his case, excluding Mr. Keen in
person; he told her about his aunt, about his birthday, about his
determination to let the legacy go. Then in a very manly way he told her
that he had never before loved a woman; and fell silent, her hands a
dead weight in his.
She was surprised that she could experience no resentment. A curious
inertia crept over her. She was tired of expectancy, tired of effort,
weary of the burden of decision. Life and its problems overweighted her.
Her eyes wandered to his broad young shoulders, then were raised to his
face.
"What shall we do?" she asked innocently.
Unresisting, she suffered him to explain. His explanation was not
elaborate; he only touched his lips to her hands and straightened up, a
trifle pale.
After a moment they walked together to the door and he took his hat and
gloves from the rack.
"Will you come to-morrow morning?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Come early. I am quite certain of how matters are with me. Everything
has gone out of my life--everything I once cared for--all the familiar
things. So come early, for I am quite alone without you."
"And I without you, Rosalind."
"That is only right," she said simply. "I shall cast no more shadows for
you. . . . Are you going? . . . Oh, I know it is best that you should
go, but--"
He halted. She laid both hands in his.
"We both have it," she faltered--"every symptom. And--you will come
early, won't you?"
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's The Tracer of Lost Persons, by Robert W. Chambers