By means of the ab initio calculation, the second-order nonlinear derivatives of the dipole moment and polarizability of a dimer, CO ... HCl, with respect to the two, CO and HCl, stretching modes are found to be inversely proportional to r(3), where r is the intermolecular distance. The observed r-dependencies are interpreted by taking into account the dipole-induced-dipole interaction. Thus, it is shown that the intermolecular distance between two vibrational chromophores can be estimated by quantitatively examining the cross-peak intensity in a given 2D (two dimensional) vibrational spectrum. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-9606(00)00509-2].