upon the untidy desk. “I’m putting the blame on no one. Do you understand that?”
McGuire turned a bloated bewildered face slowly upon his patient. His wet cigarette sagged comically from his half-opened mouth.
“Do I understand what?” he said. “See here,’Gene: what the hell are you driving at? I’m no Sherlock Holmes, you know. I’m your doctor. Spit it out.”
“What I’ve done,” he said dramatically, “thousands have done. Oh, I know they may pretend not to. But they do! You’re a doctor—you know that. People high-up in society, too. I’m one of the unlucky ones. I got caught. Why am I any worse than they are? Why—” he continued rhetorically.
“I think I catch your drift,” said McGuire dryly. “Let’s have a look, son.”
Eugene obeyed feverishly, still declaiming.
“Why should I bear the stigma for what others get away with? Hypocrites—a crowd of damned, dirty, whining hypocrites, that’s what they are. The Double-Standard! Hah! Where’s the justice, where’s the honor of that? Why should I be blamed for what people in High Society—”
McGuire lifted his big head from its critical stare, and barked comically.
“Who’s blaming you? You don’t think you’re the first one who ever had this sort of trouble, do you? There’s nothing wrong with you, anyway.”
“Can—can you cure me?” Eugene asked.
“No. You’re incurable, son!” said McGuire. He scrawled a few hieroglyphics on a prescription pad. “Give this to the druggist,” he said, “and be a little more careful hereafter of the company you keep. People in High Society, eh?” he grinned. “So that’s where you’ve been?”
The great weight of blood and tears had lifted completely out of the boy’s heart, leaving him dizzily buoyant, wild, half-conscious only of his rushing words.
He opened the door and went into the outer room. Ben got up quickly and nervously.
