Dr. Ebbett took his cigar from his lips and studied it with deliberation. When he spoke his words were laconic.
"I think it's as dangerous as hell."
"But a young wife will rejuvenate him and keep him young, won't she?"
"It's rarely been done before," retorted the doctor drily. "Moreover, it's not a question of making him young again. A man of our friend's type is born old."
"Oh, come now," protested Carton. "What's the matter with his type?"
Dr. Ebbett paused, listening to the blizzard's shrieking outside, then he replied evenly:
"He's too intensely a New Englander. The somber and narrow man represses one-half of his being and straightway sets up a Mr. Hyde in ambush to make war on his Dr. Jekyl. Our lunatic asylums are full of patients whose repressions have driven them mad. The whole Puritan code is a religion of repression—and it's viciously dangerous."
Dr. Ebbett paused and sent a cloud of cigar smoke outward. His voice abandoned the lecture-room professionalism into which it had fallen.
"But, as you say, that is all academic. Perhaps the bride has youth and humor enough to leaven the whole lump."