not afraid to enter into matrimony when he had a secondary
eruption.' All that was established later on--'and who,
moreover, had thought it best not to let his wife be treated for
fear of awakening her suspicions!'"

The doctor closed the book with a bang. "What that man has done,
sir, is what you want to do."

George was edging toward the door; he could no longer look the
doctor in the eye. "I should deserve all those epithets and
still more brutal ones if I should marry, knowing that my
marriage would cause such horrors. But that I do not believe.
You and your teachers--you are specialists, and consequently you
are driven to attribute everything to the disease you make the
subject of your studies. A tragic case, an exceptional case,
holds a kind of fascination for you; you think it can never be
talked about enough."

"I have heard that argument before," said the doctor, with an
effort at patience.

"Let me go on, I beg you," pleaded George. "You have told me
that out of every seven men there is one syphilitic. You have
told me that there are one hundred thousand in Paris, coming and
going, alert, and apparently well."

"It is true," said the doctor, "that there are one hundred
thousand who are actually at this moment not visibly under the
influence of the disease. But many thousands have passed into
our hospitals, victims of the most frightful ravages that our