She sat down in his oak swivel-chair and crossed her slender ankles. "Are you aware of the problem they have downstairs in the out-patient clinic?" "Hadn't heard," Murt said. * * * * * She removed a file from her purse and touched up her short nails. "The outlying clinics are sending their overflow to us. They can't seem to diagnose the odd symptoms they're getting." "I had noticed the large number of negative test results coming out of the lab," Murt acknowledged. "Haven't followed any of them through, though." "I have," Phyllis said with a little frown. "Seems to be a psychosomatic nightmare down there." "What are the symptoms?" "Mostly neurotic," she said. "Listlessness, loss of appetite, palpitations, cold sweats and absent-mindedness." "Why don't they go to the psychiatric clinics?" "Overloaded. They're sending patients here." "What age groups?" "From puberty to senility. I'd like your permission to do a little special work on blood samples." "Another theory?" he asked caustically. "Yes. Will you give me your permission to test it?" Murt adjusted his Panama straw in the mirror and noticed that the nostrils of his straight nose were flared for some reason. "Your time is your own after three P. M. every day. If you want to take time out from your thesis research, that's your business." He crossed to the door and was opening it when he became aware that he had had no answer. He looked back at the profile of his assistant's body, which was now stretched out full length, suspended at three points--her higher-than-practical heels on the linoleum tile, her spine and curved hips using only an inch of the chair's edge, and her head tilted over the chair's back. She inhaled from a king-size filter-tip cigarette and blew a feather of smoke at the ceiling. "_Yuh!_" she said finally. Her flat abdomen jumped at the exhaled syllable, and so did her generous breasts under the soft emerald-green street dress. "Good _night_!" Murt closed the door behind him quickly and became aware of a sharp stab of what he defined as pure rut--the first he had suffered in fifteen years. II He taxied downtown to the athletic club, where he maintained his three-room apartment. The 20-story building was a citadel of masculinity--no females allowed--and recently it was an especial relief to enter the lobby and leave behind the world of turbulently mixed sexes.