"You were talking to me the other day," she went on, "about your contemplative experiences, and you were saying how entirely your purely intellectual and spiritual progress conformed to the well-trodden mystical way. You added, of course, that you did not wish to suggest any comparison with the path of greater men, but, allowing for conventional self-depreciation, you left me to suppose that you were content with your achievement. At the moment war broke out you felt that you were ripe for action, and instead of becoming a priest after those nine years of contemplative preparation, you joined a hospital unit for Serbia. You feel quite secure about the war; you accept your fever, your possible internment for years in Bulgaria, and indeed anything that affects you personally without the least regret. In fact, you're what an American might call in tune with the infinite. I'm not! And it's all a matter of digestion."
"My illness has clouded my brain," Michael murmured. "I'm a long way from understanding what you're driving at."
"Well, keep quiet and listen to my problems. We're on the verge of separation, but you're still my patient and you owe me your attention."
"I owe you more than that," he put in.
"How feeble," she scoffed. "You might have spared me such a pretty-pretty sentence."
"I surrender unconditionally," he protested. "Your fierceness is superfluous."
"I suppose you've often labeled humanity in bulk? I mean, for instance, you must have often said and certainly thought that all men are either knaves or fools."
"I must have thought so at some time or another," Michael agreed.
"Well, I've got a new division. I think that all men have either normal digestions, slow digestions, rapid digestions, or no digestions at all. Extend the physical fact into a metaphor and apply it to the human mind."
"Dear Sylvia, I feel as if I were being poulticed. How admirably you maintain the nursing manner. I've made the application. What do I do now?"