Peter told his father-in-law about the gas-attack at Neuve Église, about his cough, about Rolleston. Heron Baynet laughed.
“We’ll soon settle that. Tubercle’s a bacillus. I’ll test you for it. Now then, what else are you afraid of?”
Peter hesitated.
“Shall I tell you a few things?” went on the doctor. “You’re afraid of going out by yourself. You’re afraid of noise. You’re afraid of time.”
“How do you know?” asked Peter wonderingly.
“My dear boy, how do you know things? By learning them, don’t you? You were trained in business, you were trained in soldiering. You studied them. Well, I’ve studied the mind. . . .”
“But damn it,” said Peter, “one oughtn’t to be afraid of anything. At least, one oughtn’t to admit it?”
“Oughtn’t”—the doctor smiled. “There’s no ‘oughtn’t’ in the mind. ‘Oughtn’t’ is half your trouble. You’ve corked-up all these fears with your ‘oughtn’ts’ until they’ve become obsessions.”
“Well, anyway I’m a coward,” said Peter stubbornly. “You can’t get over that, however much you argue about it.”
“Of course you are,” countered his father-in-law blandly, “of course you’re a coward. So are nine-hundred and ninety-nine men out of every thousand. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have tried to control this wound in your mind. You were afraid to tell anybody about it, weren’t you?”