Kay was twenty-three, with a tall graceful form apparent even under her rather severe white dress. She had brown eyes with active light in them and a serious face shot through with sudden moods of amusement. She was serious today, though, as she continued.
“What may be a fine place for a neurotic young doctor with exalted ambitions may not be a fine place for a girl with an interesting nose.”
A month ago Vincintelli had asked her to marry him and she had refused him with confirmatory laughter. Instinct warned him that it was not yet time to try again, but he kept anxiously remembering her pose of flight by the window.
“That’s because you haven’t yet been able to view your work professionally,” he suggested in a don’t-worry-little-girl tone. “If you see someone badly afflicted it depresses you—a natural feeling in a layman but not suitable to a nerve specialist. They are merely cases—even their sufferings have a different quality than ours. They suffer perhaps more but not as normal human beings suffer. It’s like reading into a plodding horse the sensibilities of an educated person.”
“It seems much the same to me,” Kay admitted. “I know that father can’t agonize over every case he treats, but it has made him hard. I simply say with all humility that I’m not fitted for the work.”
He came over and stood beside her, even put his hand tentatively on her bare forearm, but immediately withdrew it as if he sensed some hardening of the pores.
“Let me help you, Kay. If your life was joined to—”
He was interrupted by a click from Professor Shafer’s desk as the red light came on. Impatiently he moved away from Kay and called “Come in.” It was the Professor’s secretary.
“Mr. Peter Woods is here from New York, doctor.”
“Mr. Peter Woods—oh, yes,” Vincintelli straightened up; his features relaxed their intensity and an expression of genial urbanity had settled on his face as Mr. Peter Woods came into the room.
He was a tall young man of about thirty, with pleasant mien and manner, and the rather harassed face of one who bore heavy responsibilities.
“Dr. Vincintelli?” he said, “I understand that Professor Shafer is away.”
“Come in, Mr. Woods—I’m very happy to meet you. I’m sorry the Professor’s gone, but since I’ve occupied myself particularly with your brothers I hope I’ll be a satisfactory substitute. In fact—”
Peter Woods collapsed suddenly into the armchair beside the desk.
“I haven’t come about my brothers, Dr. Vincintelli, I’ve come about myself.”
Dr. Vincintelli gave a start, and turned quickly to Kay.
“That will be all, Miss Shafer,” he said. “I will talk to Mr. Woods.”
Only then did Peter Woods notice that there was another person in the room, and seeing that a pretty girl had heard his avowal he winced. Meanwhile Kay was studying him—certainly he was the most attractive looking man she had met since leaving medical school, but she was examining more carefully the flexing of his hands, the muscles of his face, the set of his mouth, searching for the “tension” which in its medical sense is one of the danger signs of mental troubles.
“I will see Mr. Woods alone,” repeated Dr. Vincintelli.
“Very well.”
When she had left the room, Vincintelli, his features sympathetically composed, sank back into Professor Shafer’s arm chair and folded his hands.
“Now, Mr. Woods, let me hear about it.”
The young man drew a long breath, then he too sat back in his chair concentrating.
“As you may know, Pm the youngest member of the firm,” he began. “Perhaps because of that I am less inclined to worry than my brothers, but frankly the stock-market crash didn’t bother me much. We were so rich in 1929—I didn’t think anybody ought to be as rich as we were. As things got worse I felt like hell about it but still I didn’t feel like my brothers did—and when they collapsed, one by one, I couldn’t understand it. It didn’t seem justified by the circumstances.”
“Go on, go on,” said Dr. Vincintelli, “I understand.”
“What bothered me personally was not the hard times—it was my brothers. Ever since Walter broke down a year ago I’ve lived with the idea that there was hereditary mental trouble in the family and it might hit me. That was all until last week.”
He drew a long breath.
“I came home from work last Friday to the penthouse where I live alone at 85th Street. I had been working very hard—I’d been up all night the night before, smoking a lot. As I opened the door on all that big silence I felt suddenly that the time had come—I was going insane.”
“Tell me all about it,” Dr. Vincintelli leaned forward in his chair. “Tell me exactly what happened.”
“Well—I saw—I saw—”
“Yes,” said Dr. Vincintelli eagerly.
“I saw rings and circles before my eyes, revolving and revolving like suns and moons of all colors.”
Dr. Vincintelli sank back in his chair.
“Is that all?”
“Isn’t that enough?” asked Peter Woods. “I’d never seen anything like that before.”
“No voices?” demanded Dr. Vincintelli, “No buzzing in your head?”
“Well, yes,” admitted Peter, “some buzzing, like a hangover.”
“No headaches? No feeling that maybe you weren’t who you thought you were? No feeling that you wanted to kill yourself? No terrible fears?”
“Well, I can’t say I had any of those—except the last—I had a terrible fear that I was going to go crazy.”
“I see,” said Dr. Vincintelli, pressing his fingers together. There was a moment’s silence—then he spoke up in a crisp decided voice. “Mr. Woods, the wisest thing you ever did in your life was to come voluntarily and put yourself under our care. You are a pretty sick man.”
“My God,” groaned Peter Woods, “Do you mean I may be like my brothers?”
“No,” said Dr. Vincintelli emphatically, “because in your case we’re going to catch it in time.”
Peter Woods buried his face in his hands.
It was the custom for such patients as were not under restraint to dine rather formally with the staff at a long table in the pleasant dining room—when they sat down Kay Shafer found herself sitting opposite Mr. Peter Woods.
Over the whole assemblage brooded a certain melancholy. The doctors kept up a sort of chatter, but most of the patients, as if exhausted by their day’s endeavor or depressed by their surroundings, said little but concentrated on their food or stared down into their plates. It was the business of Kay as of the other doctors to dissipate as much of this atmosphere as possible.
As she sat down she smiled and spoke to Peter Woods and he looked at her with a rather startled expression. After a minute he addressed a casual remark about the weather to Mr. Hughes, the patient sitting on his left, but receiving no answer he lowered his eyes and made no further attempt at conversation. After a minute Mr. Hughes spoke up suddenly.
“The last one to finish his soup,” he said, “is a rotten egg.”
No one laughed or seemed to have heard. The cadaverous woman on Peter Woods’ right addressed him.
“Did you just arrive?”
“Yes.”
“Do you play polo?” she asked.
“Why, a little.”
“We must play soon—perhaps tomorrow.”
“Why, thank you very much,” he said, looking surprised.
The woman leaned toward him suddenly.
“My heavens, this fish!”
Peter Woods looked down at his plate; there seemed nothing the matter with the fish.
“Why, it seems very nice.”
“Nice?” She shook her gaunt head. “Well, if you think it’s nice all I can say is you must be crazy.”
Kay saw him wince, look again at the fish, poke it reticently with his fork, even inhale it unobtrusively as if he thought his own judgment had become fallible.
Mr. Hughes spoke up again.
“The last one who finishes—” but Kay felt that this had gone far enough. She leaned forward and said to Peter Woods in a clear crisp voice that cut across Mr. Hughes’ remark:
“Do you know New Hampshire, Mr. Woods?”
“I’ve never been here be fore,” he answered.
“There are some fine walks and climbs around here with beautiful views,” Kay said.
“Dullest scenery in North America,” muttered the horsewoman, sotto voce.
Kay continued her conversation until Mr. Hughes interrupted.
“As a matter of fact I am a doctor,” he said irrelevantly, “one of the best doctors in the country.” He cast a look of jealousy at Dr. Vincintelli at the head of the table. “I wish they’d let me take charge of this place for about a week. I had a clinic of my own that makes this one look like a poor-house.”
He stared at his plate sadly.
“What was the matter?” Peter Woods asked with an effort. “Did it fail?”
“It failed,” said the doctor despondently, “Everything failed. I had to come here.”
“That was too bad.”
“Yes,” agreed the doctor absently, and then, “And I know why it failed.”
“Why?”
“Plot—I had powerful enemies. What do you suppose they used?”
“What?” asked Peter Woods.
“Mice. Filled the whole place with mice. Mice everywhere. Why, I used to see mice—”
Again Kay interrupted him.
“Now, Doctor Hughes, mustn’t tell Mr. Woods about that right now.”
The man sunk his voice to a whisper but Kay heard.
“She hates me,” he said. “Can’t stand it if I talk about mice.”
“Like horses?” the woman patient asked Peter Woods.
“Yes, I do.”
“Rode all my life but was thrown from a horse three years ago.” She hesitated. “But still keep my own stable. Only six now—three hunters that you’ll like. Show them to you tomorrow.”
The conversation was interrupted by the sound of moving chairs. Dr. Vincintelli rose and the table rose with him. Kay drew a long breath of relief. She had, to a certain extent, adjusted herself to the irrationalities and delusions of the
