He had declined the use of Mrs. Hamilton’s motor; he preferred to walk
home and to reflect upon this new type. He was not altogether a fool. In
spite of the fact that she was a very attractive woman, he had made up
his mind that he would never go to her house again--not even to study
her.
“No!” he was saying to himself. “She’s morbid--irresponsible. They’re
really dangerous, that reckless sort!”
A hand clutched his sleeve and a breathless voice cried:
“Oh, doctor, I’ve been rushing after you for miles and miles!”
It was little Mavis Borrowby, daughter of an old patient. Always in the
past Andrew had taken Mavis for granted as part of old Borrowby’s
background. He was quite disconcerted to see her, this spring evening,
as a detached individuality, and a very vivid one.
She took his arm and hung on it, looking up into his face with babyish
violet eyes.
“Oh, doctor!” she cried. “I went to your lecture. It was simply
_wonderful_! But it depressed me awfully. Please let me walk along with
you and ask you some questions!”
“Child, you shouldn’t go to my lectures,” said Andrew indulgently.
“You’re too young. They’re not for you.”
“Oh, but they _are_, doctor! Why, I’m engaged, you know--at least, I
_was_ engaged, but I sha’n’t be any longer. I wouldn’t for worlds do all
that harm to a helpless man. I’m going to tell Edward so to-night.”
Andrew was a little taken aback. He said something about thinking things
out for oneself--not accepting another person’s ideas.
“Oh, no!” said little Mavis confidently. “I know you can think ever so
much better than me. I _like_ to get my ideas from _wonderful_ men like
you!”
The innocent, naive, violet-eyed little thing touched him with pity.
What, he thought, was there in life for her except marriage? He couldn’t
imagine her engaged in any work, any profession, any art. Would it not
perhaps be better if some man were enslaved and sacrificed for the sake
of this poor little baby-girl?
“Look here, Mavis,” he said; “this won’t do. You mustn’t throw over this
fellow, you know, without a great deal of serious reflection. You might
ruin your life and his, too.”
“But you said I’d ruin him by marrying him--”
“Never mind that. You--you’re too young to grasp it. And there are
always exceptions. If you care for this chap--”
“I don’t really think I do, much,” she said thoughtfully. “Anyway, I
simply couldn’t stand making a martyr of him, and having him be the one
to do all the sacrificing. But, doctor, what _are_ we to do, if men
mustn’t get married?”
He couldn’t answer. To tell the truth, he had thought of marriage so
exclusively from a man’s point of view that he had quite overlooked the
woman’s. Freedom was all very well, but it wasn’t for the little Mavises
of this world. He began to deliberate whether there weren’t certain men
who should be set apart for marriage and martyrdom for the sake of the
really nice young girls.
He was about to suggest this theory to Mavis, when he found himself
before his own door.
“Hurry off home now, won’t you?” he said. “It’ll be dark soon. And see
here, Mavis, don’t say anything to your Edward just yet--don’t do
anything until we’ve talked it over. Come into the office some
afternoon.”
She said she would, and hurried off, in the sunset.
As he let himself in, he heard from the dining-room the uproar which
seemed an inevitable accompaniment of the Franklin method. Because
playing in the dining-room had formerly been an unimaginable thing
rather than a forbidden joy, it was now the rule. The doctor didn’t like
it. He wanted his dinner in peace. It was not the sort of dinner he
liked, either, and Miss Franklin distressed him by incessantly crunching
lumps of sugar.
He retired to his study, where he swore furiously to himself; but for
some reason which he didn’t care to analyze, he dared not tell Miss
Franklin to take away the children. Nor was he surprised when she
knocked at the door, and, being told to enter, did so, and sat down
opposite him, prepared to spend the evening.
Crashes, screams, and slaps from the dining-room disturbed her not at
all. She said she didn’t believe in supervising children; it hampered
them.
She talked persistently about free love, which Andrew didn’t like. When
spoken of as the relation of the sexes, it was quite proper and
scientific; but directly one introduced that idea of love, it was
entirely changed. It became sensational and distinctly alarming.
He was thankful when an accident occurred in the dining-room which could
not be ignored. Little Frank had climbed into a drawer of the sideboard
and broken through, and in the course of his struggles he upset
everything within reach.
Once he had got Miss Franklin out, Andrew took good care that she should
not get in again.
V
He had forgotten all about Mavis, and he was pleasantly surprised when
she came into his office the next afternoon.
“I pretended that I had a sore throat,” she said, “so I could come and
see you. You see, Edward came last night, and oh, doctor, he did seem so
awfully _flat_, after _you_!”
“You mustn’t be so extreme,” he said. “There are some men who aren’t at
all unhappy in marriage.”
“I know. Ordinary little men aren’t. It’s only the _wonderful_ men like
you. But, doctor dear, I couldn’t be happy with an ordinary man. I--I
want a man like _you_!”
It wouldn’t do, of course, to tell her that there were mighty few men of
this sort, and that they wouldn’t care for naive little girls, anyway.
Andrew wasn’t even much flattered by her admiration; it was too
indiscriminate.
“Suppose you don’t marry,” he said. “What will you do?”
“I thought you could tell me. I thought, of course, you had some
perfectly wonderful sort of plan for women.”
Well, he hadn’t, and he saw that he must make one. It seemed that his
first step toward the settlement of this specific case would be to make
an analysis, and he at once began. Mavis answered all his questions
readily and fully, but he had a suspicion that she told him what she
thought he would like to hear, instead of keeping to facts. Still, even
at that, he learned a great deal, for she was too ignorant and young to
deceive a trained observer. Of course it took a very long time; his
other office patients had to be sent away.
He went politely to the door with Mavis, and he was surprised to see
Miss Franklin standing in the hall--the little private hall which was
only for outgoing patients, and in which she had no possible business to
be.
“What are you doing out here?” he asked.
“I was just wondering what you were doing,” she retorted, “shut up in
there with that girl all this long time!”
“I was writing an analysis of her.”
“Let’s see your analysis!”
“It’s not finished. Besides--”
“Do let me see it! Perhaps I can help you.”
“You don’t know Miss Borrowby--”
“Oh, yes, I do know Miss Borrowby!” said Miss Franklin. “I know her
better than you do!”
Andrew didn’t like her tone, but he let it pass, with a meekness quite
new to him. Miss Franklin smiled and went away.
He intended to spend the evening perfecting his analysis in peace; but
scarcely had he got well started when Miss Franklin opened the door.
“A patient!” she said.
It was a lady. She sat down beside Andrew’s desk, without raising her
veil, and at once began to sob.
“Oh, doctor!” she cried. “I don’t know what to do! Oh, my suffering!
What shall I do?”
He felt quite sure that this was a drug addict, and his manner, though
kind, was one of thorough sophistication.
“Now, now, my dear madam!” he said. “Don’t excite yourself!”
“You don’t even _know_ me!” she cried, pushing up her veil.
“I do!” he protested guiltily. “It’s Mrs. Hamilton. I knew your voice;
but it’s dark here in the corners of the room when there’s only the lamp
lighted.”
She smiled bitterly.
“Yes,” she said. “That’s it. I’m lost in the darkness, outside the
circle of lamplight!”
“This chair--”
“I’m speaking figuratively, doctor. I’m in such trouble. I wish I were
dead!”
Reluctantly, but in duty bound, he said:
“Tell me about it.”
She began to weep again.
“You’re the only one I can tell. You showed such an interest in me the
other day. You cared, didn’t you?”
“Yes, certainly I did; but please don’t cry.”
“Oh, dear doctor, it is your own great trouble that makes you so
sympathetic to others, I am sure!”
“My own great trouble?”
“I heard of it indirectly--through Miss Franklin. She mentioned it to
some one I know. She said that your wife”--Mrs. Hamilton dropped her
voice, and ended with the greatest delicacy: “That your wife has left
you. I _am_ so sorry!”
“Nothing of the sort!” Andrew began angrily.
Then it occurred to him that it would be difficult, if not impossible,
to explain so modern a situation to so romantic a creature; so instead
he encouraged her to tell him her own sad story.
He never learned what her trouble was, because she didn’t tell him. “My
husband” and “a woman’s sensitive heart,” and “disgusting intoxication,”
had something to do with it. She cried forlornly, and he tried to stop
her. Common sense and all that he had learned from experience of her
type warned him not to be too sympathetic, but it was difficult. She was
exquisite. She had a sort of morbid charm about her--a sensibility at
once dangerous and pitiful.
He rose, went over to her, and laid his hand on her shoulder.
“It’s hard,” he said. “Life is bound to be hard for people like you; but
you must try to see it in a more robust way, with more humor, more
indifference.”
“I do! No one knows how I try!” she said, looking up into his face with
her dark eyes, luminous with tears.
Suddenly the door opened, without warning. Miss Franklin looked in, and
disappeared again. Mrs. Hamilton rose.
“Who was that?” she asked.
“That’s Miss Franklin.”
“Oh! I didn’t know she was so young. Does she stay here as late as
this?”
“She lives here.”
“Lives here--with your wife away?”
Mrs. Hamilton was moving toward the door.
“Good night, doctor!” she said, and there was a decided coolness in her
voice.