McDermott rosily hadn’t, and Pyle’s dry voice crackled again.
“As I thought! That explains how, with so little display of emotion, you can advise somebody else to do it. You see, my son,”—he dropped his tone of raillery and became sincere—“we’re dealing here with an odd number. Nobody quite like him in the whole world … full of funny crotchets. In a psychiatric clinic—which this hospital is going to be, shortly, with the entire staff in straitjackets—some of Hudson’s charming little idiosyncrasies would be brutally referred to as clean-cut psychoses!”
The silence in Mrs. Ashford’s office was tense. Pyle’s regard for the chief was known to be but little short of idolatry. What, indeed, was he preparing to say? Did he actually believe that Hudson was off the rails?
“Now, don’t misunderstand!” he went on quickly, sensing their amazement. “Hudson’s entitled to all his whimsies. So far as I’m concerned, he has earned the right to his flock of phantoms. He is a genius, and whosoever loveth a genius is out of luck with his devotion except he beareth all things, endureth all things, suffereth long and is kind.”
“Not like sounding brass,” interpolated Jennings piously.
“Apropos of brass,” growled Pyle, “but—no matter … We all know that the chief is the most important figure in the field of brain surgery on this continent. But he did not come to that distinction by accident. He has toiled like a slave in a mill. His specialty is guaranteed to make a man moody; counts himself lucky if he can hold down his mortality to fifty percent. What kind of a mentality would you have”—shifting his attention to Jennings, who grinned, amiably—“if you lost half your cases? They’d soon have you trussed in a big tub of hot water, feeding you through the nose with a syringe!”
“You spoke of the chief’s psychoses,” interrupted McDermott, approaching the dangerous word hesitatingly. “Do you mean that—literally?”
Pyle pursed his lips and nodded slowly.
“Yes—literally! One of his notions—by far the most alarming of his legion, in so far as the present dilemma is affected—has to do with his curious attitude toward fear. He mustn’t be afraid of anything. He must live above fear—that is his phrase. You would think, to hear his prattle, that he was a wealthy and neurotic old lady trying to graduate from Theosophy into Bahaism …”
“What’s Bahaism?” inquired Jennings, with pretended naivete.
“Hudson believes,” continued Pyle, disdainful of the annoyance, “that if a man harbours any sort of fear, no matter how benign and apparently harmless, it percolates through all his thinking, damages his personality, makes him landlord to a ghost. For years, he has been so consistently living above fear—fear of slumping, fear of the natural penalties of overwork, fear of the neural drain of insomnia … Haven’t you heard him discoursing on the delights of reading in bed to three o’clock? … fear of that little aneurism he knows he’s got—that he has driven himself at full gallop with spurs on his boots and burrs under his saddle, caroling about his freedom, until he’s ready to drop. But whoever cautions him will be warmly damned for his impertinence.”
Pyle had temporarily run down, and discussion became general. Carter risked suggesting that if the necessary interview with the chief required a gift for impertinence, why not deputize Jennings? Aldrich said it was no time for kidding. McDermott again nominated Pyle. Gram shouted, “Of course!” They pushed back their chairs. Pyle brought both big hands down on his knees with a resounding slap, rose with a groan, and sourly promised he’d have a go at it.
“Attaboy!” commended Jennings paternally. “Watson will do your stitches, afterwards. He has been getting some uncommonly nice cosmetic values, lately, with his scars; eh, Watty?”
The disorder incident to adjournment spared Watson the chagrin of listening to the threatened report of Jennings’ eavesdropping, an hour earlier, on the dulcet cooing of a recently discharged patient, back to tender her gratitude. Emboldened by his rescue, he dispassionately told Jennings to go to hell, much to the latter’s faunlike satisfaction, and the staff evaporated.
“Let’s go and eat,” said Pyle.
As they turned the corner in the corridor, Jennings slipped his hand under Pyle’s elbow and muttered, “You know damned well what ails the chief, and so do I. It’s the girl!”
“Joyce, you mean?”
“Who else?” Jennings buttoned his overcoat collar high about his throat and thrust his shoulder against the big front door and an eighty-mile gale. “Certainly, I mean Joyce. She’s running wild, and he’s worrying his heart out and his head off!”
“Maybe so,” Pyle picked his footing carefully on the snowy steps. “But I don’t believe it’s very good cricket for us to analyze his family affairs.”
“Nonsense! We’re quite past the time for indulging in any knightly restraints. Hudson’s in danger of shooting his reputation to bits. Incidentally, it will give the whole clinic a black eye when the news spreads. If the chief is off his feed because he’s fretting about his girl, then it’s high time we talked candidly about her. She’s a silly little ass, if you ask my opinion!”
“Well, you won’t be asked for your opinion. And it’s no good coming at it in that mood. She may be, as you say, a silly little ass; but she’s Hudson’s deity!”
Jennings motioned him to climb into the coupé and fumbled in his pockets for his keys.
“She wasn’t behaving much like a deity—unless Bacchus, perhaps—the last time I saw her.”
“Where was that?”
“At the Tuileries, about a month ago, with a party of eight or ten noisy roisterers, in the general custody of that good-for-nothing young Merrick—you know, old Nick Merrick’s carousing grandson. Believe me, they were well oiled.”
“Did you—did she recognize you?”
“Oh, quite so! Came fluttering over to our table to speak to
