"Everybody can't absorb such quantities of champagne as you can stow away and still maintain his equilibrium. It's a case of too much spirits, I'm afraid."
The little Frenchman turned a wide-eyed stare on me, then answered in a level, almost toneless voice: "Prie Dieu you speak in jest, my friend, and your fears have no foundation."
"There's a gentleman to see yez, sors," Nora McGinnis announced apologetically. "I tol' 'im it wuz afther office hours, an' that ye're mos' partic'lar fer to give yerselves some time to digest yer dinners, but he sez as how it's mos' important, an' wud yez plase be afther seein' 'im, if only fer a minute?"
"Tiens, it is the crowning sorrow of a doctor's life that privacy is not included in his dictionary,: answered Jules de Grandin with a sigh. "Show him in, petite"—Nora, who tipped the scales at something like two hundred pounds, never failed to glow with inward satisfaction when he used that term to her—"show him in all quickly, for the sooner we have talked with him the sooner we shall see his back."
The change which three short months had made in Frazier Taviton was nothing less than shocking. Barely forty years of age, tall, hound-lean, but well set up, his prematurely graying hair and martial carriage had given him distinction in appearance, and with it an appearance of such youth and strength as most men fifteen years his junior lacked. Now he seemed stooped and shrunken, the gray lights in his hair seemed due to age instead of accidental lack of pigment, and in the deep lines of his face and the furtive, frightened glance which looked out from his eyes, he saw the symptoms of a man who has been overtaken by a rapid and progressive malady.
"Step into the consulting-room," I said as we concluded shaking hands; "we can look you over better there," but:
"I'm not in need of going over, Doctor," Frazier answered with a weary smile; "you can leave the stethoscope and sphygmotonometer in place. This consultation's more in Doctor de Grandin's line."
"Très bien, I am wholly at your service, Monsieur," the Frenchman told him. "Will you smoke or have a drink? It sometimes helps one to unburden himself."
Taviton's hand shook so he could hardly hold the flame to his cigar tip, and when he finally succeeded in setting it alight he paused, looking from one to the other of us as though his tongue could not find words to frame his crowding thoughts. Abruptly:
"You know I've always been in love with Agnes, Doctor?" he asked me almost challengingly.
"Well," I temporized, "I knew your families were close friends, and you were a devoted swain in high school, but"
"Before that!" he cut in decisively. "Agnes Pemberton and I were sweethearts almost from the cradle!"
Turning to de Grandin he explained; "Our family homes adjoined, and from the time her nursemaid brought her out in her perambulator I used to love to look at Agnes. I was two years her senior, and for that reason always something of a hero to her. When she grew old enough to toddle she'd slip her baby fist in mine, and we'd walk together all around the yard. If her nurse attempted to interfere she'd storm and raise the very devil till they let her walk with me again. And the queer part was I liked it. You don't often find a three-year-old boy who'd rather walk around with a year-old girl than play with his toys, but I would. I'd leave my trains or picture books any time when I heard Agnes call, 'Frazee, Frazee,
