fascinating, if you grasp my import."
"Huh! He's probably a naturally selfish fellow who's putting on a good show of gentleness for your benefit. Those flashes of tyranny are probably his real character in moment of forgetfulness."
"You doctors can explain anything, can't you?"
"That's our business. It's what we're paid for."
"Well, you're wrong this time. I know Nick well enough to know if he's acting. His personality is just what I said--gentle, sensitive, and yet--It's perplexing, and that's a good part of his charm."
"Then it's not such a serious case you've got," mocked the doctor. "When you're cool enough to analyze your own feelings, and dissect the elements of the chap's attraction, you're not in any danger."
"Danger! I can look out for myself, thanks. That's one thing we mindless moderns learn young, and don't let me catch you puttering around in my romances! _In loco parentis_ or just plain loco, you'll get the licking instead of me!"
"Believe me, Pat, if I wanted to experiment with affairs of the heart, I'd not pick a spit-fire like you as the subject."
"Well, Doctor Carl, you're warned!"
"This Nick," observed the Doctor, "must be quite a fellow to get the princess of the North Side so het up. What's the rest of his cognomen?"
"Nicholas Devine. Romantic, isn't it?"
"Devine," muttered Horker. "I don't know any Devines. Who are his people?"
"Hasn't any."
"How does he live? By his writing?"
"Don't know. I gathered that he lives on some income left by his parents. What's the difference, anyway?"
"None. None at all." The other wrinkled his brows thoughtfully. "There was a colleague of mine, a Dr. Devine; died a good many years ago. Reputation wasn't anything to brag about; was a little off balance mentally."
"Well, Nick isn't!" snapped Pat with some asperity.
"I'd like to meet him."
"He's coming over tonight."
"So'm I. I want to see your mother." He rose ponderously. "If she's not playing bridge again!"
"Well, look him over," retorted Pat. "And I think your knowledge of love is a decided flop. I think you're woefully ignorant on the subject."
"Why's that?"
"If you'd known anything about it, you could have married mother some time during the last seventeen years. Lord knows you've tried, and all you've attained is the state of _in loco parentis_ instead of _parens_."Psychiatrics of Genius
"How do you charge--by the hour?" asked Pat, as Doctor Horker returned from the hall. The sound of her mother's departing footsteps pattered on the porch.
"Of course, Young One; like a plumber."
"Then your rates per minute must be colossal! The only time you ever see Mother is a moment or so between bridge games."
"I add on the time I waste with you, my dear. Such as now, waiting to look over that odd swain of yours. Didn't you say he'd be over this evening?"

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