"She's out," said Pat as the massive form of Dr. Carl Horker loomed in
the doorway. "Your treatments must be successful; Mother's out playing
bridge."
The Doctor gave his deep, rumbling chuckle. "So much the better, Pat.
I don't feel professional anyway." He moved into the living room,
depositing his bulk on a groaning davenport. "And how's yourself?"
"Too well to be a patient of yours," retorted the girl. "Psychiatry!
The new religion! Just between friends, it's all applesauce, isn't it?"
"If I weren't trying to act in place of your father, I'd resent that,
young lady," said the Doctor placidly. "Psychiatry is a definite
science, and a pretty important one. Applied psychology, the science of
the human mind."
"If said mind exists," added the girl, swinging her slim legs over the
arm of a chair.
"Correct," agreed the Doctor. "In my practice I find occasional
evidence that it does. Or did; your generation seems to have found
substitutes."
"Which appears to work just as well!" laughed Pat. "All our troubles
are more or less inherited from your generation."
"Touche!" admitted Dr. Horker. "But my generation also bequeathed you
some solid values which you don't know how to use."
"They've been weighed and found wanting," said Pat airily. "We're busy
replacing them with our own values."
"Which are certainly no better."
"Maybe not, Doc, but at least they're ours."
"Yours and Tom Paine's. I can't see that you young moderns have brought
any new ideas to the social scheme."
"New or not, we're the first ones to give 'em a try-out. Your crowd
took it out in talk."
"That's an insult," observed the Doctor cheerfully. "If I weren't
acting _in loco parentis_--"
"I know! You'd give me a few licks in the spot popularly supposed to
do the most good! Well, that's part of a parent's privilege, isn't it?"
"You've grown beyond the spanking age, my dear. Physically, if not
mentally--though I don't say the process would hurt me as much as you.
I'd doubtless enjoy it."
"Then you might try sending me to bed without my dinner," the girl
laughed.
"That's a doctor's prerogative, Pat. I've even done that to your
Mother."
"In other words, you're a complete flop as a parent. All the
responsibilities, and none of the privileges."
"That expresses it."
"Well, you elected yourself, Doc. It's not my fault you happened to
live next door."
"No. It's my misfortune."
"And I notice," remarked Pat wickedly, "that you're not too thoroughly
_in loco_ to neglect sending Mother a bill for services rendered!"
"My dear girl, that's part of the treatment!"
"So? And how?"
"I furnish a bill just steep enough to keep your mother from indulging
too frequently in medical services. Without that little practical check
on her inclinations, she'd be a confirmed neurotic. One of those sweet,
resigned, professional invalids, you know."
"Then why not send her a bill tall enough to cure her altogether?"
"She might change to psychoanalysis or New Thought," chuckled the
Doctor. "Besides, your father wanted me to look after her, and besides
that, I like having the run of the house."
"Well, I'm sure I don't mind," observed Pat. "We've a dog and a canary
bird, too."
"You're in fine fettle this afternoon!" laughed her companion. "Must've
been a successful date last night."
"It was." Her eyes turned suddenly dreamy.
"You're in love again, Pat!" he accused.
"Again? Why the 'again'?"
"Well, there was Billy, and that Paul--"
"Oh, those!" Her tone was contemptuous. "Merely passing fancies, Doc.
Just whims, dreams of the moment--in other words, puppy love."
"And this? I suppose this is different--a grand passion?"
"I don't know," she said, frowning abruptly. "He's nice, but--odd.
Attractive as--well, as the devil."
"Odd? How?"
"Oh, he's one of those minds you think we moderns lack."
"Intellectual, eh? New variety for you; out of the usual run of your
dancing collegiates. I've often suspected that you picked your swains
by the length and lowness of their cars."
"Maybe I did. That was one of the chief differences between them."
"How'd you meet this mental paragon?"
"Billy Fields dragged him around to one of those literary evenings he
affects--where they read Oscar Wilde and Eugene O'Neil aloud. Bill met
him at the library."
"And he out-shone all the local lights, I perceive."
"He surely did!" retorted Pat. "And he hardly said a word the whole
evening."
"He wouldn't have to, if they're all like Billy! What's this prodigy's
specialty?"
"He writes. I think--laugh if you want to!--I think perhaps he's a
genius."
"Well," said Doctor Horker, "even that's possible. It's been known to
occur, but rarely, to my knowledge, in your generation."
"Oh, we're just dimmed by the glare of brilliance from yours." She
swung her legs to the floor, facing the Doctor. "Do you psychiatrists
actually _know_ anything about love?" she queried.
"We're supposed to."
"What is it, then?"
"Just a device of Nature's for perpetuating the species. Some organisms
manage without it, and do pretty well."
"Yes. I've heard references to the poor fish!"
"Then they're inaccurate; fish have primitive symptoms of eroticism.
But below the vertebrates, notably in the amoeba, I don't recall any
amorous habits."
"Then your definition doesn't explain a thing, does it?"
"Not to one of the victims, perhaps."
"Anyway," said Pat decisively, "I've heard of the old biological urge
before your kind analysis. It doesn't begin to explain why one should
be attracted to this person and repelled by that one. Does it?"
"No, but Freud does. The famous Oedipus Complex."
"That's the love of son for mother, or daughter for father, isn't it?
And I don't see how that clears up anything; for example, I can just
barely remember my father."
"That's plenty. It could be some little trait in these swains of yours,
some unimportant mannerism that recalls that memory. Or there's that
portrait of him in the hall--the one under the mellow red light. It
might happen that you'd see one of these chaps under a similar light
in some attitude that brings the picture to mind--or a hundred other
possibilities."
"Doesn't sound entirely convincing," objected Pat with a thoughtful
frown.
"Well, submit to the proper treatments, and I'll tell you exactly what
caused each and every one of your little passing fancies. You can't
expect me to hit it first guess."
"Thanks, no! That's one of these courses where you tell the doctor all
your secrets, and I prefer to keep what few I have."
"Good judgment, Pat. By the way, you said this chap was odd. Does that
mean merely that he writes? I've known perfectly normal people who
wrote."
"No," she said, "it isn't that. It's--he's so sweet and gentle and
manageable most of the time, but sometimes he has such a thrilling
spark of mastery that it almost scares me. It's puzzling but
fascinating, if you grasp my import."
"Huh! He's probably a naturally selfish fellow who's putting on a good
show of gentleness for your benefit. Those flashes of tyranny are
probably his real character in moment of forgetfulness."
"You doctors can explain anything, can't you?"
"That's our business. It's what we're paid for."
"Well, you're wrong this time. I know Nick well enough to know if he's
acting. His personality is just what I said--gentle, sensitive, and
yet--It's perplexing, and that's a good part of his charm."
"Then it's not such a serious case you've got," mocked the doctor.
"When you're cool enough to analyze your own feelings, and dissect the
elements of the chap's attraction, you're not in any danger."
"Danger! I can look out for myself, thanks. That's one thing we
mindless moderns learn young, and don't let me catch you puttering
around in my romances! _In loco parentis_ or just plain loco, you'll
get the licking instead of me!"
"Believe me, Pat, if I wanted to experiment with affairs of the heart,
I'd not pick a spit-fire like you as the subject."
"Well, Doctor Carl, you're warned!"
"This Nick," observed the Doctor, "must be quite a fellow to get the
princess of the North Side so het up. What's the rest of his cognomen?"
"Nicholas Devine. Romantic, isn't it?"
"Devine," muttered Horker. "I don't know any Devines. Who are his
people?"
"Hasn't any."
"How does he live? By his writing?"
"Don't know. I gathered that he lives on some income left by his
parents. What's the difference, anyway?"
"None. None at all." The other wrinkled his brows thoughtfully. "There
was a colleague of mine, a Dr. Devine; died a good many years ago.
Reputation wasn't anything to brag about; was a little off balance
mentally."
"Well, Nick isn't!" snapped Pat with some asperity.
"I'd like to meet him."
"He's coming over tonight."
"So'm I. I want to see your mother." He rose ponderously. "If she's not
playing bridge again!"
"Well, look him over," retorted Pat. "And I think your knowledge
of love is a decided flop. I think you're woefully ignorant on the
subject."
"Why's that?"
"If you'd known anything about it, you could have married mother some
time during the last seventeen years. Lord knows you've tried, and
all you've attained is the state of _in loco parentis_ instead of
_parens_."
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