'So I confess I rather assumed,' said the doctor, hissing slightly. 'Oh yes, she came to see me after visiting you last week. Without an appointment, I may say. In fact she didn't even knock at that door. Fortunately I was disengaged. She said I wasn't giving you the right treatment and became abusive on the point.'
'I'm sorry, Dr. Best. I didn't know she was going to do that.'
He gave a brief snorting laugh, probably to show how trifling had been the effect upon him of Lady Hazell's intrusion. 'Yes. She runs a sort of permanent salon for young men, doesn't she, at that grand house of hers? Officers from the camp and such? Parties and the rest of it till all hours?'
'She gives parties, yes.'
'A curious environment, it must have been, for a woman undergoing a breakdown. Did you join in the parties when you were there?'
'I just gave people drinks sometimes.'
Dr. Best said suddenly, 'A very attractive person, I mean physically, wouldn't you say?'
'Yes, clearly. But if you mean have I ever wanted to go to bed with her the answer's no.'
'Living in that house you must often have seen her naked or semi-naked, in the bathroom and the bedroom and elsewhere. Have you ever experienced sexual excitement at such times?'
'No.'
'You haven't been aware of your nipples hardening or any genital phenomena?'
'Christ, certainly not. I told you I get little enough of that with men.'
'We'll come to that later. Meanwhile I can't help being struck by the extreme emphasis of your denial, Mrs. Casement. Over-stressed reactions to such inquiries always tend to suggest that the subject is concealing an opposite reaction. So please think carefully. You have never in any way been sexually attracted towards Lady Hazell or any other girl or woman as far as you are aware, is that correct?'
'Yes,' said Catharine in a tone heavy with moderation.
At this assurance Dr. Best's cordiality, which had been falling off ever since he ended his pair of anecdotes, vanished altogether. He curled his lower lip over his upper one, then drew it away with a plop. 'It's clear that these tendencies of yours are buried more deeply than I suspected. We must try another line of attack.'
'May I ask a question?'
He sniffed and shrugged. 'If you wish.'
'I know I'm very ignorant about all this, but me not ever feeling attracted to girls, mightn't that just mean I wasn't attracted to them? I don't see how-'
The doctor's good will was immediately restored. 'As you say, you're ignorant. That's natural enough. But there's nothing mysterious about this. Tell me. What do you think is the reason for your prolonged history of… let's call it failure with men?'
'Well, I suppose some of it's bad luck.'
'There's no such thing as luck in this field, I'm afraid. What else?'
'I told you I sometimes feel a bit afraid of them. There was that man early on who pulled the knife on me, you remember.'
'Yes, very good, that's certainly relevant, though its real meaning is rather different from the one you appear to attribute to it. You'll agree that threatening somebody with a lethal weapon is a manifestation of aggression? Yes, now what's the most probable exterior cause of aggression, not coming from inside the person who becomes aggressive but from outside?'
'Something you don't like?'
'Very nearly. Something that doesn't like you. Somebody else's aggression. Do you follow?'
Catharine considered. 'You mean I didn't like him? But I spent all my time thinking how nice he was. I wanted to-'
'That was what you thought consciously, Mrs. Casement. All this is buried very deep, you know. Just look at your sexual career. Over the last months I've accumulated something like thirty pages of notes on it. And what does it amount to?' The doctor picked up the file in front of him and threw it a few inches farther away on his desk, then, slowly folding his hands, laid them on his crossed legs. 'Nothing very hard to interpret. Two broken marriages. Literally dozens of affairs, starting at an unusually-'
'They weren't what you could call affairs, most of them, they didn't last any time at all. I kept wanting them to last when they started, but they kept going wrong and I couldn't make them last.'
'Because of your deep… unconscious… aggression… towards… men. Oh, it's a familiar pattern. You betray unconscious hostility, the man unconsciously senses it and begins to react overtly, you retreat, he responds to the primitive flight-situation with more hostility and so on. All of which increases your latent hostility yet further and makes the next failure that much more inevitable. Your course was set a long time ago. Originally, probably, your attitude to your father was what-'
'I loved my father.'
'No doubt, no doubt. I'm not a Freudian, so we can safely leave all that on one side. I'm not interested in the semi-mystical origins of mental disease. I'm a doctor, not a theologian.' Dr. Best ran his tongue to and fro behind his lower lip. 'Anyway, in case you're still unconvinced, let me if I may draw attention to your physical type. Your shape, Mrs. Casement. Would you mind standing up for a moment? Thank you. Oh yes. Oh yes, it's all there. Tall… shoulders tending to be broad… small breasts… rather narrow hips… long legs. Turn round, would you? Quite so. You can sit down now. Quite typical semi-androgynous characteristics. You belong to-'
