Martin felt sick. The air in the room suffocated him.
“Deane! It’s Martin!” he cried.
Her hands dropped to her lap.
“I talked with your doctors,” she answered simply. “I talked with them for two hours. I was ashamed—humiliated.”
“Ashamed of what? Ashamed of me? Why! I’m all right now!”
“I spoke with your doctors,” Deane repeated, as though in fatal acceptance. “It was horrible.”
Martin took off his coat. He had on no shirt. He looked past Deane for a moment, leaning heavily against the wall.
“They have taken my girl.” He spoke bitterly. Then in a louder, more distracted voice, he repeated—“They have taken my girl.”
He continued to look about him as though in a daze.
“What have they done to you?” he kept asking. “Damn them! Collaborators with madhouses—sucking my giddy ideas, engendering the malingerer. They’ve doped you with psychological jargon, hypnotized you with fine phrases.... Breeders of hypochondriacs! I’m not afraid of them any longer, I have nothing but contempt for them. I wanted the clear advice of mature, impersonal intellects, and I meet with personal vindictiveness.”