“What do you mean by that?”
“I’m going in business with your father. He’s going to invest a bunch of money. I’ve got to see that he gets a fair return for his investment. I’ve got to get along with Mrs. Ashbury. I want to know how to do it.”
She said hastily, “You leave her alone. Keep out of her way, and listen... Don’t — don’t ever—”
“Don’t ever what?” I asked.
“Don’t ever trust yourself alone with her,” she said. “If she wants to take exercise in the gymnasium, be sure to have someone else there all the time she’s there.”
I made the mistake of laughing and said, “Oh, surely she wouldn’t—”
She turned on me furiously. “I tell you,” she said, “I know her. She’s a creature of physical appetites and animal cunning. She simply can’t control herself. All this high blood pressure business is simply the result of overeating and overindulgence. She’s put on twenty pounds since Dad married her.”
“Your father,” I said, “is nobody’s fool.”
“Of course he isn’t, but she’s worked out a technique that no man can fight against. Whenever she wants anything and anyone balks her, she starts working herself up to a high pitch of excitement, then she telephones for Dr. Parkerdale. He comes rushing out as though it were a matter of life and death, takes her blood pressure, and starts tiptoeing around the house until he’s created the proper impression. Then he takes whoever is responsible off to one side and says very gently and with his best professional manner that Mrs. Ashbury really isn’t herself, that she simply mustn’t become excited, that if he can only keep her perfectly calm for a period of several months, he can cure her blood pressure, that then she can start taking exercise and reduce her weight and be her normal self, but that whenever there’s an argument and she becomes excited, all the good that he’s done is wiped out, and he has to go back and begin all over again.”
I laughed and said, “That seems to be a hard game to beat.”