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 beard which, though unsanitary, would certainly be reassuring. Dr. Griegman was thirty or thereabouts, and everybody knows that a doctor of thirty suggests to the feminine mind rompers or an affair, depending on her type. To Dot he suggested rompers. A doctor of thirty was to her like a plumber of ten.

But she told him that she thought she was pregnant. Dr. Griegman looked properly interested, as though he ever had patients in a different condition.

"What makes you think that?"

Dot explained.

"Hm," said Dr. Griegman. His dark, not bad-looking face seemed worried. "Are you married?" he asked.

Dot blushed hotly.

"Of course I am," she said.

"Of course you are," Griegman mocked. "I've never had a patient yet who wasn't."

He jumped from the desk. "All right," he said, "let's look you over."

He motioned to the west door. "Go on in. Take off your dress and brassiere or whatever you wear and climb up on the table. Let me know when you're ready."

Dot went slowly into the other room, closing the door behind her. There was the operating table standing white and quiet as a casket, only not quite so white. Griegman's last patient had evidently had her shoes shined before the examination. There was a basin in the corner where water dripped with maddening monotony. Dot took off her hat and coat and hesitatingly began to unhook her dress. Eddie might be sore when he heard that another man had seen her like that. But still, a doctor! Surely a doctor saw so many women that it was kind of flattering oneself to think he'd be fresh.

Dr. Griegman came into the room without being called just as Dot was stepping out of her dress. She did not