"Merry, hell!" he said dispiritedly. "I came to warn you to look out for a relapse. Mine's been coming on all day." She drew him inside, made him take off his coat and sit down before she acknowledged his remark. The apartment was cozy, with a tiny Christmas tree decorated in the window. She returned from the hall closet and sat beside him. "Look what I did--on impulse," he said and tossed the package on her lap. "That's what really turned it on." She opened the nylons and looked up at him sideways. He continued unhappily, "I saw them in a window. Made me think of you, and about that time the seizure began. I tried to kid myself that I was just getting you a little token of--of my esteem, but the symptoms are almost as bad as before already." * * * * * Apparently she refused to accept the seriousness of the situation. Her smile was fatuous, he thought, kissably fatuous. "Don't you realize what this means?" he demanded. "Peterson and Feldman turned up a very distressing fact. Sulfa-tetradine deposits out in the endocrines, so a single dose is all a person can take. This relapse of mine means we have it all to do over again." "Think, Dr. Murt! Just think a minute," she urged. "About what?" "If the sulfa deposits out in the very glands it's there to protect, how could you be suffering another attack?" His arms ached to reach out and emphasize his argument. "I don't know. All I know is how I feel. In a way, this is even worse, because--" "I know," Phyllis said and perversely moved close to him. "My relapse came last Tuesday when I bought you a tie for Christmas. I sent a blood sample over to Ebert Labs right away. And do you know what?" "What?" Murt asked in a bewildered fog. "It was negative. I don't have Murt's Virus." She slipped an arm around his waist and put her head on his shoulder. "All I've got is Murt himself."