“It’s not that,” he told her. “But there is a reason why I must refrain from discussing this subject with you just now. Perhaps at some later date I shall find it possible to go into the matter more fully. And you don’t need to apologize. I have no professional secrets. But, as I said, for a rather strange reason, I must not be the one to initiate you into the mysteries of the gland secretions, and what science has accomplished[31] in the way of treating patients who are lacking in these secretions. I’m extremely sorry, Mrs. Reemy, for I must confess that, ordinarily, I like to talk about my work.” [31] She continued to gaze at him, completely mystified; then she showed her good breeding by dropping the subject entirely. “I have thought up a name for the undiscovered valley,” she announced. “Good! Let’s have it.” “The Valley of Arcana.” Dr. Shonto lifted his scanty eyebrows. “Arcana,” he repeated. “That sounds familiar. Let me paw through my vocabulary.... I’ve got it. ‘Arcanum’ is the singular, isn’t it? And it means something hidden from ordinary men. In medicine it means a great secret remedy—a panacea. But you use it in the first sense—a mystery. Or in the plural, ‘arcana’—mysteries. The Valley of Mysteries. Good! A dandy!” “Give Webster the credit,” she said demurely. “I stumbled upon the word by accident last night, browsing through the dictionary in search of something new. I’m surprised, and a little piqued, that you knew the meaning. I thought I was springing something on you.” She turned her head quickly as she spoke, and once more the doctor saw the pink creep into her cheeks. “Mr. Jerome is up,” she said, “and is coming around the house to find us. Don’t say anything. I mean, don’t call his attention to that.” She pointed over the glistening forest to the sea once more. “I want to see[32] how he reacts to it when he steps up here and finds it suddenly stretched out before him.” [32] “I’d like to ask you a question,” the doctor declared quickly. “Do you really intend to go to the Shinbone Country?” “Why, certainly—if everything turns out all right.” “When?”
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