Ebbett laughed. "I use the word only as a term—as descriptive of an intolerance which exists everywhere, north and south, east and west—but in Eben it was exaggerated. Fortunately, his wife's exuberance of spirit seems to have brightened it into normality."
"But what, exactly, did you fear, Doctor?"
"I'm afraid I'd have to grow tediously technical to make that clear, but if you can stand it, I'll try."
"I wish you would," the younger man assured him.
Dr. Ebbett leaned back and studied the ash of his cigar. "Have you ever noticed in your experience," he abruptly demanded, "that oftentimes the man who most craftily evades his taxes or indulges in devious business methods, cannot bring himself to sanction any of the polite and innocent lies which society accepts as conventions?"
Stuart nodded and the physician went on:
"In short we encounter, every day, the apparent hypocrite. Yet many such men are not consciously dishonest. They are merely victims of disassociation."
"I'm afraid," acknowledged Stuart, "I'm still too much the tyro to understand the term very fully."
"None of us understand it as fully as we'd like," Dr. Ebbett assured him. "But we are gradually learning. In every man's consciousness there is a stream of thought which we call the brain content. Below the surface of consciousness, there is a second stream of thought as unrecognized as a dream, but none the less potent."