"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 authorswriters?"
"Oh." He cast another uncomfortable glance at Pat. "WhyI like Baudelaire, and Poe, and Swinburne, and Villon, and"
"Decadents, all of them!" sniffed the Doctor. "What prose writers?"
"Well" He hesitated"Poe again, and Stern, and Rabelais"
"Rabelais!" Horker's voice boomed. "Well! Your taste can't be as bad as I thought, then. There's one we agree on, anyway. And I notice you name no moderns, which is another good point."
"I haven't read many moderns, sir."
"That's in your favor."
"Cut it!" put in Pat with assumed sharpness. "You've taken enough whacks at my generation for one day."
"I'm glad to find one of your generation who agrees with me," chuckled the Doctor. "At least to the extent of not reading its works."
"I'll teach him," grinned Pat. "I'll have him writing vess libre, and maybe even dadaism, in a week."
"Maybe it won't be much loss," grunted Horker. "I haven't seen any of his work yet."
"We'll bring some around sooner or later. We will, won't we, Nick?"
"Of course, if you want to. But"
"He's going to say something modest," interrupted the girl. "He's in the retiring mood now, but he's apt to change any moment, and snap your surly head off."
"Humph! I'd like to see it."
"So'd I," retorted Pat. "You've had it coming all day; maybe I'll do it myself."
"You have, my dear, innumerable times. But I'm like the Hydra, except that I grow only one head to replace the one you snap off." He turned again to Nicholas. "Do you work?"
"Yes, sir. At my writing."
"I mean how do you live?"
"Why," said the youth, reddening again in embarrassment, "my parents"
"Listen!" said Pat. "That's enough of Dr. Carl's cross examination. You'd think he was a Victorian father who had just been approached for his daughter's hand. We haven't whispered any news of an engagement to you, have we, Doc?"
"No, but I'm acting"
"Sure. In loco parentis. We know that."
"You're incorrigible, Pat! I wash my hands of you. Run along, if you're going out."
"You'll be telling me never to darken my own door again in the next breath!" She stretched forth a diminutive foot at the extremity of a superlatively attractive ankle, caught Nick's hat on her toe, and kicked it expertly to his lap. "Come on, Nick. There's a moon."
"There is not!" objected the Doctor huffily. "It rises at four, as you ought to know. You didn't see it last night, did you?"
"I didn't notice," said the girl. "Come on, Nick, and we'll watch it rise tonight. We'll check up on the Doctor's astronomy, or is it chronology?"
"You do and I'll know it! I can hear you come home, you imp!"
"Nice neighbor," observed Pat airily, as she stepped to the door. "I'll bet you peek out of the window, too."
She ignored the Doctor's irritated rumble as she passed into the hall, where Nick, after a diffident murmur of farewell to Horker, followed. She caught up a light cape, which he draped about her shoulders.
"Nick," she said, "suppose you run out to the car and wait. I think I've stepped too hard on Dr. Carl's corns, and I want to give him a little cheering up. Will you?"
"Of course, Pat."
She darted back into the living room, perching on the arm of the davenport beside the Doctor.
"Well?" she said, running her hand through his grizzled hair. "What's the verdict?"
"Seems like a nice kid," grumbled Horker reluctantly. "Nice enough, but introverted, repressed, and I shouldn't be surprised to find him anti-social. Doesn't adjust easily to his environment; takes refuge in a dream world of his own."
"That's what he accuses me of doing," grinned Pat. "That all you've got against him?"
"That's all, but where's that streak of mastery you mentioned? You lead him around on a leash!"
"It didn't show up tonight. That's the thrillthe unexpectedness of it."
"Bah! You must've dreamed it. There's no more aggressiveness in that lad than in KoKo, your canary."
"Don't you believe it, Dr. Carl! The trouble is that he's a genius, and that's where your psychology falls flat."
"Genius," said the Doctor oracularly, "is a sublimation of qualities"
"I'll tell you tomorrow how sublime the qualities are," called Pat as she skipped out of the door.
4
The Transfiguration
The car slid smoothly along a straight white road that stretched ahead into the darkness like an earth-bound Milky Way. In the dim distance before them, red as Antares, glowed the tail-light of some automobile; except for this lone evidence of humanity, reflected Pat, they might have been flashing through the cosmic depths of interstellar space, instead of following a highway in the very shadow of Chicago. The colossal city of the lake-shore was invisible behind them, and the clustering suburbs with it.
"Queer, isn't it?" said Pat, after a silence, "how contented we can be with none of the purchased amusement people craveshows, movies, dancing, and all that."
"It doesn't seem queer to me," answered Nick. "Not when I look at you here beside me."
"Nice of you!" retorted Pat. "But it's never happened to me before." She paused, then continued, "How do you like the Doctor?"
"How does he like me? That's considerably more to the point, isn't it?"
"He thinks you're nice, butlet's seeintroverted, repressed, and ill-adjusted to your environment. I think those were the points."
"Well, I liked him, in spite of your manoeuvers, and in spite of his being a doctor."
"What's wrong with being a doctor?"
"Did you ever read 'Tristram Shandy'?" was Nick's irrelevant response.
"No, but I read the newspapers!"
"What's the connection, Pat?"
"Just as much connection as there is between the evils of being a doctor and reading 'Tristram Shandy'. I know that much about the book, at least."
"You're nearly right," laughed Nick. "I was just referring to one of Tristram's remarks on doctors and lawyers. It fits my attitude."
"What's the remark?"
"Well, he had the choice of professions, and it occurred to him that medicine and law were the vulture professions, since lawyers live by men's quarrels and doctors by men's misfortunes. Sohe became a writer."
"And what do writers live by?" queried Pat mischievously. "By men's stupidity!"
"You're precious, Pat!" Nick chuckled delightedly. "If I'd created you to order, I couldn't have planned you more to tastepepper, tabasco sauce, vinegar, spice, and honey!"
"And to be taken with a grain of salt," retorted the girl, puckering her piquant, impish features. She edged closer to him, locking her arm through his where it rested on the steering wheel.
"Nick," she said, her tones suddenly gentle, "I think I'm pretty crazy about you. Heaven knows why I should be, but it's a fact."
"Pat, dear!"
"I'm crazy about you in this meek, sensitive pose of yours, and I'm fascinated by those masterful moments you flash occasionally. Really, Nick, I almost wish you flamed out oftener."
"Don't!" he said sharply.
"Why not?"
"Let's not talk about me, Pat. Itembarrasses me."
"All right, Mr. Modesty! Let's talk about me, then. I'll promise we won't succeed in embarrassing me."
"And it's quite the most interesting subject in the world, Pat."