"I suppose that was it. I could never have got—have got to care about any of those I met at afternoon-teas, or dinner-parties, and as for the"
"Fluff," suggested Tallis, as Beresford hesitated.
"Well, as for them," he shrugged his shoulders. "But look here, I'm talking the most unwholesome rot."
"My dear man, you are merely succeeding in being a self-conscious ass," said Tallis casually, as he dug into the bowl of his pipe with his penknife. "As a matter of fact, for the first time since we've been acquainted, you're beginning to talk sense." He paused, folded up his knife and replaced it in his pocket.
"We medicos find romance in unaccustomed places," he continued a moment later. "It's a seething spirit of unrest. Every one seems ashamed of it. I've discovered it in the most extraordinary environments. With you it's a case of the Dream-Girl."
"The Dream-Girl?" repeated Beresford.
"Every mother's son of us knows her; but she seldom materialises. When she does it's generally as a sort of Lorelei."
"You're a queer sort of fish for a doctor," said Beresford with a smile.
"We never admit of the feminine equivalent to the Fairy Prince," continued Tallis, "yet at first we all have a Dream-Girl in our minds, later she's blotted out; but that's not our fault, it's theirs—some of them," he added as if as an afterthought.
