American and I am used to
plain speech. I am quite unused to being attended by strange doctors. I
understand that you are not in general practice now. Might I ask if you
are fully qualified?"

"I am an M.D. of London," the doctor replied. "You can make yourself
quite easy as to my qualifications. It would not suit Mr. Fentolin's
purpose to entrust himself to the care of any one without a reputation."

He left the room, and Mr. Dunster closed his eyes. His slumbers,
however, were not altogether peaceful ones. All the time there seemed to
be a hammering inside his head, and from somewhere back in his obscured
memory the name of Fentolin seemed to be continually asserting itself.
From somewhere or other, the amazing sense which sometimes gives warning
of danger to men of adventure, seemed to have opened its feelers. He
rested because he was exhausted, but even in his sleep he was ill at
ease.

The doctor, with the telegrams in his hand, made his way down a splendid
staircase, past the long picture gallery where masterpieces of Van Dyck
and Rubens frowned and leered down upon him; descended the final stretch
of broad oak stairs, crossed the hail, and entered his master's rooms.
Mr. Fentolin was sitting before the open window, an easel in front of
him, a palette in his left hand, painting with deft, swift touches.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, without looking around, "it is my friend the doctor,
my friend Sarson, M.D. of London, L.R.C.P. and all the rest of it. He
brings with him the odour of the sick room. For a moment or two, just
for a moment, dear friend, do not disturb me. Do not bring any alien
thoughts into my brain. I am absorbed, you see--absorbed. It is a
strange problem of colour, this."

He was silent for several moments, glancing repeatedly out of the window
and back to his canvas, painting all the time with swift and delicate
precision.

"Meekins, who stands behind my chair," Mr. Fentolin continued, "even
Meekins is entranced. He has a soul, my friend Sarson, although you
might not think it. He, too, sees sometimes the colour in the skies, the
glitter upon the sands, the clear, sweet purity of those long stretches
of virgin water. Meekins, I believe, has a soul, only he likes better to
see these things grow under his master's touch than to wander about and
solve their riddles for himself."

The man remained perfectly immovable. Not a feature twitched. Yet it
was a fact that, although he stood where Mr. Fentolin