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She knew well that in his condition, with his particular treatment, that the imbalances should be all adjusted within twelve hours. But still—
    Then why not wake him and remind him to call?
    She suddenly realized that she was afraid to—that she was glad he was asleep and … and harmless. She felt that she could name what it was she was afraid of if she tried. So she didn’t try.
    “Blast!”
she said half aloud. She hated to be hesitant, ever, about anything.
    She would leave word with the landlady to wake him early in the morning, she decided abruptly.
    She felt like a crawling coward.
    She turned to the door, and Robin said brightly, “Goodbye, Peg darling. Thanks for everything. You’ve been swell. I’ll call you when I wake up.”
    “You young demon!” she ejaculated. “How long have you been awake?”
    “I haven’t been asleep,” he said, coming to the archway. He chuckled. “I’m sorry to say you are right about the canvas. I forgot about the disgusting thing’s being so conspicuous.”
    “Oh, that’s all … why did you pretend to be asleep?”
    “I felt something coming and didn’t want it to.”
    “I … don’t know what you mean; but why didn’t you let it come?”
    He looked at her somberly. Either it was something new, or she had never noticed the tinge of green in his eyes. “Because you wouldn’t have fought me.”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    The lower half of his face grinned. “You like most of the things I do,” he said. “I like you to humor me in those things. Those things are”—he put his fingertips to his chest, then flung them outward—“like this—fun, from here out. I don’t want to be humored from here
in
.”
    Over his shoulder she saw the big canvas. From this distance it was even more specific. She shuddered.
    “Goodbye, Peg.”
    It was a dismissal. She nodded, and went out, closing the door softly behind her. Then she ran.
    Dr. Margaretta Wenzell was highly intelligent, and she was just as sensitive. Twice she appeared at Mel Warfield’s laboratory at the hour appointed for Robin’s succeeding treatments. Once Robin did not speak to her. The second time she went, Robin did not show up. On inquiry, she learned from the information desk at the medical center that Robin had been there, had asked if she were in Dr. Warfield’s office, and having been told that she was, had turned around and walked out. After that she did not go again. She called up Warfield and asked him to forward Robin’s case history and each progress report. Mel complied without asking questions; and if Dr. Wenzell spent more time poring over them than their importance justified, it was the only sign she gave that it mattered to her.
    It mattered—very much. Never had Peg, in consultation or out, turned a patient over to another doctor before. And yet, she was conscious of a certain relief. Somehow, she was deeply certain that Robin had not ceased to like her. Consciously, she refused to give any importance to his liking for her, but in spite of that she derived a kind of comfort from an arduously-reached conclusion that Robin had reasons of his own for avoiding her, and that they would come out in good time.
    She was astonished at the progress reports. She could deduce the probable changes in Robin from the esoteric language of the reaction-listings. Here a sharp drop in the 17-ketosteroids; there a note of the extraordinary effect on the whole metabolism, making it temporarily immune to the depressing effect of the adrenal cortices in colossal overdoses. An entry in the third week of the course caused Peg two sleepless nights of research; the pituitrin production was fluctuating wildly, with no apparent balancing reaction from any other gland—and no appreciable effect on the patient. A supplementary report arrived then, by special messenger, which eased her mindconsiderably. It showed a slight miscalculation in a biochemical analysis of Robin’s blood