“Believe me, Pat, if I wanted to experiment with affairs of the heart, I’d not pick a spitfire like you as the subject.”
“Well, Doctor Carl, you’re warned!”
“This Nick,” observed the Doctor, “must be quite a fellow to get the princess of the North Side so het up. What’s the rest of his cognomen?”
“Nicholas Devine. Romantic, isn’t it?”
“Devine,” muttered Horker. “I don’t know any Devines. Who are his people?”
“Hasn’t any.”
“How does he live? By his writing?”
“Don’t know. I gathered that he lives on some income left by his parents. What’s the difference, anyway?”
“None. None at all.” The other wrinkled his brows thoughtfully. “There was a colleague of mine, a Dr. Devine; died a good many years ago. Reputation wasn’t anything to brag about; was a little off balance mentally.”
“Well, Nick isn’t!” snapped Pat with some asperity.
“I’d like to meet him.”
“He’s coming over tonight.”
“So’m I. I want to see your mother.” He rose ponderously. “If she’s not playing bridge again!”
“Well, look him over,” retorted Pat. “And I think your knowledge of love is a decided flop. I think you’re woefully ignorant on the subject.”
“Why’s that?”
“If you’d known anything about it, you could have married mother some time during the last seventeen years. Lord knows you’ve tried, and all you’ve attained is the state of in loco parentis instead of parens.”
III
Psychiatrics of Genius
“How do you charge—by the hour?” asked Pat, as Doctor Horker returned from the hall. The sound of her mother’s departing footsteps pattered on the porch.
“Of course, Young One; like a plumber.”
“Then your rates per minute must be colossal! The only time you ever see Mother is a moment or so between bridge games.”
“I add on the time I waste with you, my dear. Such as now, waiting to look over that odd swain of yours. Didn’t you say he’d be over this evening?”
“Yes, but it’s not worth your rates to have him psychoanalyzed. I can do as well myself.”
“All right, Pat. I’ll give you a sample analysis free,” chuckled the Doctor, distributing his bulk comfortably on the davenport.
“I don’t like free trials,” she retorted. “I sent for a beauty-culture book once, on free trial. I was twelve years only, and returned it in seven days, but I’m still getting sales letters in the mails. I must be on every sucker list in the country.”
“So that’s the secret of your charm.”
“What is?”
“You must have read the book, I mean. If you remember the title, I might try it myself. Think it’d help?”
“Dr. Carl,” laughed the girl, “you don’t need a book on beauty culture—you need one on bridge! It’s that atrocious game you play that’s bothering Mother.”
“Indeed? I shouldn’t be surprised if you were right; I’ve suspected that.”
“Save your surprise for when I’m wrong, Doc. You’ll suffer much less from shock.”
“Confident little brat! You’re apt to get that knocked out of you some day, though I hope you never do.”
“I can take it,” grinned Pat.
“No doubt you can, but you’re an adept at handing it out. Where’s this chap of yours?”
“He’ll be along. No one’s ever stood me up on a date yet.”
“I can understand that, you imp! Is that the famous Nick?” he queried as a car purred to a stop beyond the windows.
“No one else!” said the girl, glancing out. “The Big Thrill in person.”
She darted to the door. Horker turned casually to watch her as she opened it, surveying Nicholas Devine with professional nonchalance. He entered, tall, slender, with his thin sensitive features sharply outlined in the light of the hall. He cast a quick glance toward the Doctor; the latter noted the curious amber-green eyes of the lad, set wide in the lean face, deep, speculative, the eyes of a dreamer.
“Evening, Nick,” Pat was bubbling. The newcomer gave her a hasty smile, with another glance at the Doctor. “Don’t mind Dr. Carl,” she continued. “Aren’t you going to kiss me? It irks the medico, and I never miss a chance.”
Nicholas flushed in embarrassment; he gestured hesitantly, then placed a hasty peck of a kiss on the girl’s forehead. He reddened again at the Doctor’s rumble of “Young imp of Satan!”
“Not very good,” said Pat reflectively, obviously enjoying the situation. “I’ve known you to do better.” She pulled him toward the arch of the living room. “Come meet Dr. Horker. Dr. Carl, this is the aforesaid Nicholas Devine.”
“Dr. Horker,” repeated the lad, smiling diffidently. “You’re the psychiatrist and brain specialist, aren’t you, Sir?”
“So my patients believe,” rumbled the massive Doctor, rising at the introduction, and grasping the youth’s hand. “And you’re the genius Patricia has been raving about. I’m glad to have the chance of looking you over.”
Nick gave the girl a harassed glance, shifting uncomfortably, and patently at a loss for a reply. She grinned mischievously.
“Sit down, both of you,” she suggested helpfully. She seized his hat from the reluctant hands of Nick, sailing it carelessly to a chair.
“So!” boomed the Doctor, lowering his great bulk again to the davenport. He eyed the youth sitting nervously before him. “Devine, did you say?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I knew a Devine once. Colleague of mine.”
“A doctor? My father was a doctor.”
“Dr. Stuart Devine?”
“Yes, sir.” He paused. “Did you say you knew him, Dr. Horker?”
“Slightly,” rumbled the other. “Only slightly.”
“I don’t remember him at all, of course, I was very young when he—and my mother too—died.”
“You must have been. Patricia claims you write.”
“I try.”
“What sort of material?”
“Why—any sort. Prose or poetry; what I feel like writing.”
“Whatever inspires you, I suppose?”
“Yes, sir.” The lad flushed again.
“Ever have anything published?”
“Yes, sir. In Nation’s Poetry.”
“Never heard of it.”
“It has a large circulation,” said Nick apologetically.
“Humph! Well, that’s something. Whom do you like?”
“Whom do I like?” The youth’s tone was puzzled.
“What authors—writers?”
“Oh.” He cast another uncomfortable glance at Pat. “Why—I like Baudelaire, and Poe, and Swinburne, and Villon, and—”
“Decadents, all of
