The doctor smiled. “We don't usually receive payment in advance,” he said, and laid the envelope on the desk. “Leave the little fellow with me for an hour or so, and I'll tell him what he needs to know.” So Beauty got up and went out; meantime the doctor glanced into the envelope, and saw that Lanny was entitled to a full dose of the facts of life.
VII
The boy found himself seated in a chair facing the desk of this strange professional gentleman. When he heard what he was there for, the blood began to climb into his cheeks; for Lanny, too, was a little Puritan, far from the home of his forefathers.
However, it wasn't really so bad; for the Baroness de la Tourette had been right. Lanny had not failed to see the animals, and the peasant boys had talked in the crudest language. His mind was a queer jumble of truth and nonsense, most of the latter supplied by his own speculations. The peasant boys had told him that men and women behaved like that also, but Lanny hadn't been able to believe it; when the doctor asked why not, he said: “It didn't seem dignified.” The other smiled and replied: “We do many things which do not seem dignified, but we have to take nature as we find it.”
The doctor's explanations were not by means of the bees and the flowers, but with the help of a medical book full of pictures. After Lanny had got over the first shock he found this absorbingly interesting; here were the things he had been wondering about, and someone who would give him straight answers. It was impossible for Lanny to imagine such desires or behavior on his own part, but the doctor said that he would very soon be coming to that period of life. He would find the time of love one of happiness, but also of danger and strain; there arose problems of two different natures, man's and woman's, learning to adjust themselves each to the other, and they needed all the knowledge that was to be had.
All this was sensible, and something which every boy ought to have; Lanny said so, and pleased the learned-looking doctor, who gave him the full course for which the mother had paid, and even a little extra. He took up a subject which had a great effect upon the future of both mother and son. “I understand that your mother is divorced,” he remarked. “There are many problems for children of such a family.”
“I suppose so,” said Lanny innocently — for he was not aware of any problems in his own family.
“Understand, I'm not going to pry into your affairs; but if you choose to tell me things that will help me to guide you, it will be under the seal of confidence.”
“Yes, sir,” said Lanny. “Thank you very much.”
“When families break up, sooner or later one party or the other remarries, or perhaps both do; so the child becomes a stepchild, which means adjustments that are far from easy.”