taggered over to the pathologist, slurred, "You're what I've b'n
lookin' for all m'life," and planted a wet alcoholic kiss on his mouth
before he could defend himself.

Her escort peeled her away with sad-eyed apologies. There was no
jealousy or anger in his face, only a deep hurt. "She--she isn't well, I
think," he said. "You know, this new--whatever it is that's going
around."

Murt wiped off the lipstick and looked at Phyllis, expecting to find at
best sardonic amusement, but she seemed pale and annoyed.

"I'm sorry I brought you here," she said.

"Think nothing of it," Murt told her. "You heard the man. This is what's
going around. Do you think I'll catch it?"

Phyllis wasn't amused. She did let him ride the taxi to her apartment,
but bade him a terse goodby at the door.

Except for the incident of the blonde and Phyl's reaction, the evening
had been a bust. Murt wondered how he had ever visualized her as a
warm-blooded, responsive female. He smiled at the evening of torment she
had once given him.

She was entirely frigid or else so leery of men that she might as well
have been one herself.

IV

The following morning, he presided at a specialists' conference at the
hospital, during which he revealed the results of the blood research.
They had all read the Health Service bulletin and were sharply
interested in the photomicrographs.

When the meeting was over, Feldman, the bacteriologist, and Stitchell,
an endocrinologist, volunteered to work with Murt. They gave Phyllis'
"gland-irritation" theory more credence than Murt. He outlined a
program. Both agreed to take the problem back to their own departments.

The conference set Murt behind in his work and he spoke scarcely five
words to his assistant until he was ready to leave. As he finished
scrubbing up, she handed him an early edition of the _Times_.

"Local Doctor Isolates Love Bug!" The story was sketchy and not half so
positive as the headline, but it did name him and High Dawn Hospital,
and described the new virus.

He stared at Phyllis Sutton. "Did you--"

"Of course not. The reporters were here, but I sent them away. I told
them we were medicine men, not tobacco men."

"Your name isn't even mentioned," he said suspiciously.

"You signed the report to the Health Service," she pointed out. "The
leak probably came at that end." She put her hand on his arm. "It wasn't
your fault."

His fury cooled as he noted her gesture. Then she re