"If you can, you mean!" she jeered. She looked at his exasperated face, and suddenly, with one of her abrupt changes of mood, she softened. "Dr. Carl, Honey," she said in apologetic tones, "I'm sorry. You're very sweet, and I'm really grateful, but I can't leave Nick now." Her eyes turned troubled. "Not now." "Why, Pat?" Mollified by the change in her mien, his voice rumbled in sympathetic notes. "I can't," she repeated. "It's--it's getting worse." "Bah!" "So it's 'Bah'!" she flared. "Well, if you're so contemptuous of the thing, why don't you cure it? What good did your psychoanalysis do? You don't even know what it is!" "What do you expect?" roared the Doctor. "Can I diagnose it by absent treatment? I haven't had a chance to see the condition active yet!" "All right!" said Pat, her strained nerves driving her to impatience. "You're here and Nick's here! Go on with your diagnosis; get it over with, and let's see what you can do. _You_ ought at least to be able to name the condition--the outstanding authority in the Middle West on neural and mental pathology!" Her tone was sardonic. "Listen, Pat," said Horker with exaggerated patience, in the manner of one addressing a stupid child, "I've explained before that I can't get at the root of a mental aberration when the subject's as unstrung as your young man here seems to be. Psychoanalysis just won't work unless the subject is calm, composed, and not in a nervous state. Can you comprehend that?" "Just dimly!" she snapped. "You ought to know another way--you, the outstanding authority--" "Be still!" he interrupted gruffly. "Of course I know another way, if I wanted to drag all of us back to my office, where I have the equipment!--which I won't do tonight," he finished grimly. "Then do it here." "I haven't what I need." "There's everything upstairs," said Pat. "It's all there, all Nick's father's equipment." "Not tonight! That's final." The girl's manner changed again. She turned troubled, imploring eyes on Horker. "Dr. Carl," she said plaintively, "I can't leave Nick now." She seized the arm of the silent, dejected youth, who had been standing passively by. "I can't leave him, really. I'd not be sure of seeing him again, ever. Please, Dr. Carl!" "If these frenzies of yours," rumbled Horker, "are so violent and malicious, you ought to be confined. Do you know that, young man?" "Yes, sir," mumbled Nick wretchedly. "And I've thought of it," continued the Doctor. "I've thought of it!" "Please!" cried Pat imploringly. "Won't you try, Dr. Carl?" "The devil!" he growled. "All right, then." He followed the girl up the stairs, while Nick trailed disconsolately behind. She led him back into the chamber they had quitted, where a curious odor of peach pits seemed to scent the air. Horker sniffed suspiciously, then seized the remaining beaker, raising it cautiously to his nostrils.