ly at a glance, started them
forward, and closed the rear with his own impressive person. The iron
gates clanged, the door of the opera bus snapped, and Sacharissa strolled
back into the rococo reception room not quite certain why she had not
gone, not quite convinced that she was feeling perfectly well.

For the first few minutes her face had been going hot and cold,
alternately flushed and pallid. Her heart, too, was acting in an unusual
manner--making sufficient stir for her to become uneasily aware of it.

"Probably," she thought to herself, "I've eaten too many chocolates." She
looked into the large gilded box, took another and ate it reflectively.

A curious languor possessed her. To combat it she rang for her maid,
intending to go for a brisk walk, but the weight of the furs seemed to
distress her. It was absurd. She threw them off and sat down in the
library.

A little while later her maid found her lying there, feet crossed, arms
stretched backward to form a cradle for her head.

"Are you ill, Miss Carr?"

"No," said Sacharissa.

The maid cast an alarmed glance at her mistress' pallid face.

"Would you see Dr. Blimmer, miss?"

"No."

The maid hesitated:

"Beg pardon, but Mr. Carr said you was to see some doctors."

"Very well," she said indifferently. "And please hand me those
chocolates. I don't care for any luncheon."

"No luncheon, miss?" in consternation.

Sacharissa had never been known to shun sustenance.

The symptom thoroughly frightened her maid, and in a few minutes she had
Dr. Blimmer's office on the telephone; but that eminent practitioner was
out. Then she found in succession the offices of Doctors White, Black,
and Gray. Two had gone away over New Year's, the other was out.

The maid, who was clever and resourceful, went out to hunt up a doctor.
There are, in the cross streets, plenty of doctors between the Seventies
and Eighties. She found one without difficulty--that is, she found the
sign in the window, but the doctor was out on his visits.

She made two more attempts with similar results, then, discovering a
doctor's sign in a window across the street, started for it regardless of
snowdrifts, and at the same moment the doctor's front door opened and a
young man, with a black leather case in his hand, hastily descended the
icy steps and hurried away up the street.

The maid ran after him and arrived at his side breathless, excited:

"Oh, _could_ you come--just for a momen