“I’ll never get over my disappointment about what she did with those blood specimens,” said Robin soberly.
“Disappointment? Why?”
“I had hoped she was a vampire.”
“Go on, Mel. Don’t try to keep up with him.”
“It wasn’t until I found out that you wrote ‘The Cellophane Chalice’—and mind you, I never did like poetry, but that was different—and that you also”—he ticked them off on his fingers—”wrote the original continuity for that pornographic horror of a comic strip ‘Gertie and the Wolves,’ did the pipe-cleaner figurines that were photographed to illustrate ‘The Tiny Hans Anderson,’ dropped a sackful of pine oil into the fountain at Radio City purely because you wanted to see thirty thousand gallons of bubbles, got thrown in the pen for it and while there saved the lives of two prisoners and a guard by slugging it out with a homicidal maniac in the bull pen; composed ‘The Lullaby Tree’… by the way, how was it Rollo Vincente got all the credit—and the money—for that song? It was Number One on the hit list for sixteen weeks.”
“He did a swell job,” said Robin. “He wrote it down for me.”
“Robin can’t read music,” Peg said tiredly.
“Oh Lord,” said Warfield reverently. “I also learned that you invented that disgusting advertising disease ‘Stoplight Acne’ and gave it for free to an advertising copywriter—”
“Who is now making twenty thousand a year,” said Peg.
“The guy was desperate,” said Robin. “Besides, he gave me my gold trumpet.”
“Which is in hock,” said Peg.
“Oh, why go on?” said Warfield. “Most important, I learned that you didn’t eat regularly, that you suffered from recurrent eviction, that you continually give away your possessions, including your overcoats, with such bland illogic that once you spent four months in the hospital with pneumonia and complications—”
“Four winter months, I might point out,” said Robin. “So help me, I don’t know how I’d have gotten through that winter otherwise. That was well worth the price of an overcoat.”
“So Peg began to make a social issue of it. She said that you were a fountainhead of art, science, and industry and that the dispersal of your talents was a crime against humanity. At this stage I would be inclined to agree with her even if she weren’t Peg.” Warfield looked at the girl, and the way he did it made Robin raise his eyebrows.
“So now that we have your cooperation, we’ll go ahead, for the greater honor and glory of humanity and creative genius, as Dr. Wenzell here once phrased it. But I want you to thoroughly understand that although there is every chance of success, there might be no result at all, or… or something worse.”
“Like what?”
“How do I know?” said Warfield sharply, and only then did Peg realize what a strain this was to him.
“You’re the doctor,” said Robin. Suddenly he walked up to Warfield and touched his chest gently. He smiled. He said, “Mel, don’t worry. I’ll be all right.”
Peg’s emotional pop-valve let go a hysterical giggle. Warfield turned abruptly away and roughly tore a drawer open and pulled out a thin sheaf of documents. “You’ll have to sign these,” he said roughly. “I’m going to get the solutions ready. Come on, Peg.”
In the laboratory, Peg leaned weakly against the centrifuge. “Don’t worry, Mel,” she quoted mistily.
“From the time of Hippocrates,” growled Warfield, “it has been the duty and practice of the physician to do everything in his power to engender confidence in the patient. And he—”
“Made you feel better.”
After a long pause Warfield said, “Yes, he did.”
“Mel, I think he’s right. I think he will be all right. I think that what he has can’t be killed. There’s too much of it!”
She suddenly noticed that Warfield’s busy hands had become still, though he didn’t turn to look at her. He said “I was afraid of that.”
“What?”
“Oh, I—skip it.”
“Mel, what’s the matter?”
“Nothing of any importance—especially to you. It’s just the way you talk about Robin… the way your voice sounds—”
“That’s utterly ridiculous!”
Warfield chuckled a little. “Not that I can blame you. Really I can’t.
That boy has, without exception, the most captivating—”
“Mel, you’re being offensive. You certainly know me well enough to know that my interest in Robin English is purely professional—even if I have to include the arts among the professions. Personally he doesn’t appeal to me. Why, he’s a child!”
“A situation which I shall adjust for you.”
“That was the n-nastiest thing anyone ever said to me!” she blazed.
“Oh, Peg.” He came to her, wiping his hands on a towel. He threw it away—a most uncharacteristic gesture, for him—and put his hands gently on her shoulders. She would not meet his eyes. “Your lower lip is twice as big as it ought to be,” he said softly. “I am sorry, darling.”
“Don’t call me darling.”
“I lost my good sense. May I ask you to marry me again?”
“M-marry me again?”
“Thank the powers for that sense of the ridiculous! May I ask you again? It’s about time.”
“Let’s see—what is the periodicity? You ask me every nineteen days, don’t you?”
“Aloud,” he said gravely.
“I—” At last she met his eyes. “No. No! Don’t talk about it!”
He took his hands off her shoulders. “All right, Peg.”
“Mel, I wish you wouldn’t keep bringing this up. If I ever change my mind, I’ll speak up.”
“Yes,” he said thoughtfully. “I believe you would.”
“It’s just that you—Oh Mel, everything’s so balanced now! My work is finally going the way I want it to go, and I just don’t need anything else.” She held up a hand, quickly. “If you say anything about ductless glands I’ll walk out of here and never see you again!”
“I won’t, Peg.”
There was a strained silence. Finally Peg said, “Are you almost ready?”
Mel nodded and went back to the bench. “You can bring him in now.”
Peg went out into the reception office. Something white and swift swished past her face, went rocketing up into the corner of the ceiling, hovered, and then drifted down to the floor in slow spirals. “What in—”
“Oh—Sorry, Peg,” Robin said, grinning sheepishly. He went and picked up the white object, and held it out to her. “Tandem monoplane,” he explained. “The Langley principle. If Langley had only had a decent power plant, aviation history would have been drastically different. The thing is really airworthy.”
“Robin, you’re impossible. Mel’s ready. Where’s the thing he asked you to sign?”
“Hm-m-m? Oh, that—this is it.”
“You made that airplane out of it?”
“Well, I wanted to see if I could do it without tearing the paper. I did too.” He disassembled the aircraft busily, and smoothed the papers. “They’re all right, see?”
“I ought to make you stand in the corner,” she said, half angrily.
“O.K. It’s a long time till Christmas. You won’t hold that over my head.”
She looked at him and suddenly, violently, resented Mel for what he had intimated. “Come on, Robin,” she said softly. She took his hand and led him into the laboratory.
“Sit down, Robin,” said Warfield without looking up.
“Per—dition!” said Robin, wide-eyed. “You’ve got more glassware here than the Biltmore Bar. As the hot, cross Bunsen said to the evaporator, ‘Be still, my love.’”