Euthymia welcomed the doctor very heartily.  She could not help suspecting his errand, and she was very glad to have a chance to talk over her friend’s schemes and fancies with him.

The doctor began without any roundabout prelude.

“I want to confer with you about our friend Lurida.  Does she tell you all her plans and projects?”

“Why, as to that, doctor, I can hardly say, positively, but I do not believe she keeps back anything of importance from me.  I know what she has been busy with lately, and the queer idea she has got into her head.  What do you think of the Tarantula business?  She has shown you the paper, she has written, I suppose.”

“Indeed she has.  It is a very curious case she has got hold of, and I do not wonder at all that she should have felt convinced that she had come at the true solution of the village riddle.  It may be that this young man is the same person as the boy mentioned in the Italian medical journal.  But it is very far from clear that he is so.  You know all her reasons, of course, as you have read the story.  The times seem to agree well enough.  It is easy to conceive that Ch might be substituted for K in the report.  The singular solitary habits of this young man entirely coincide with the story.  If we could only find out whether he has any of those feelings with reference to certain colors, we might guess with more chance of guessing right than we have at present.  But I don’t see exactly how we are going to submit him to examination on this point.  If he were only a chemical compound, we could analyze him.  If he were only a bird or a quadruped, we could find out his likes and dislikes.  But being, as he is, a young man, with ways of his own, and a will of his own, which he may not choose to have interfered with, the problem becomes more complicated.  I hear that a newspaper correspondent has visited him so as to make a report to his paper,—­do you know what he found out?”

“Certainly I do, very well.  My brother has heard his own story, which was this:  He found out he had got hold of the wrong person to interview.  The young gentleman, he says, interviewed him, so that he did not learn much about the Sphinx.  But the newspaper man told Willy about the Sphinx’s library and a cabinet of coins he had; and said he should make an article out of him, anyhow.  I wish the man would take himself off.  I am afraid Lurida’s love of knowledge will get her into trouble!”

“Which of the men do you wish would take himself off?”

“I was thinking of the newspaper man.”

She blushed a little as she said, “I can’t help feeling a strange sort of interest about the other, Mr. Kirkwood.  Do you know that I met him this morning, and had a good look at him, full in the face?”

“Well, to be sure!  That was an interesting experience.  And how did you like his looks?”

“I thought his face a very remarkable one.  But he looked very pale as he passed me, and I noticed that he put his hand to his left side as if he had a twinge of pain, or something of that sort,—­spasm or neuralgia,—­I don’t know what.  I wondered whether he had what you call angina pectoris.  It was the same kind of look and movement, I remember, as you trust, too, in my uncle who died with that complaint.”