“I see. Well?”
“Well, we sat before the fire and she asked me to make her a cocktail. She said she had had the blues and she wanted to be gay. So I mixed some cocktails and she took two, and she certainly was gay. I didn't know Penelope drank cocktails, but of course it was all right—lots of women do. Then she wanted to sit on the divan and she bolstered me up with pillows. She said she liked divans. I hate to tell you all this, sir.”
“Go on, Chris.”
“Pretty soon she wanted a cigarette and she began to blow smoke in my face, laughing and fooling and—finally she put her lips up so temptingly for another light that I ... I'll never forget how she bent over me and held my face between her two hands and kissed me slowly with a little sideways movement and told me to call her Fauvette—not Penelope. She said she hated the name Penelope. 'Call me Fauvette,' she said. 'I am your Fauvette, all yours.'”
“Extraordinary! This was the woman who had been furious with you only two nights before for daring to kiss her once?”
“Yes, sir. Now she was a siren, a wonderful, lithe creature, clinging to me. I almost lost control of myself. Once I caught her sharply by the shoulder—I tore her dress....”
Christopher stopped as the power of these memories overcame him. He covered his eyes with one hand, while the other clutched the chair arm.
The doctor waited.
“Well, sir,” the young man resumed, “I don't know how I came through that night without dishonor, but I did. There was a moment of madness, then suddenly, distinctly, like a gentle bell I heard a voice inside me, a sort of spiritual voice saying two words that changed everything. 'Your wife!' That is what she was to be, my wife! I loved her. I must defend her against herself, against myself. And I did. I got her out of that place—somehow. I got her home—somehow. I have been through several battles, doctor, but this one was the hardest.”
Captain Herrick drew a long sigh and sat silent.