The Breaking Point Part 8

Doctor Lauler glanced quickly at David and then looked away.

"I see," he nodded. "Of course the walling off of a part of the past--you said a part--?"

"Practically all of it. I'll tell you about that later. What about the walling off?"

"It is generally the result of what we call the protective mechanism of fear. Back of most of these cases lies fear. Not cowardice, but perhaps we might say the limit of endurance. Fear is a complex, of course.

Dislike, in a small way, has the same reaction. We are apt to forget the names of persons we dislike. But if you have been reading on the subject--"

"I've been studying it for ten years."

"Ten years! Do you mean that this condition has persisted for ten years?"

David moistened his dry lips. "Yes," he admitted. "It might not have done so, but the--the person who made this experiment used suggestion.

The patient was very ill, and weak. It was desirable that he should not identify himself with his past. The loss of memory of the period immediately preceding was complete, but of course, gradually, the cloud began to lift over the earlier periods. It was there that suggestion was used, so that such memories as came back were,--well, the patient adapted them to fit what he was told."

Again Doctor Lauler shot a swift glance at David, and looked away.

"An interesting experiment," he commented. "It must have taken courage."

"A justifiable experiment," David affirmed stoutly. "And it took courage. Yes."

David got up and reached for his hat. Then he braced himself for the real purpose of his visit.

"What I have been wondering about," he said, very carefully, "is this: this mechanism of fear, this wall--how strong is it?"

"Strong?"

"It's like a dam, I take it. It holds back certain memories, like a floodgate. Is anything likely to break it down?"

"Possibly something intimately connected with the forgotten period might do it. I don't know, Livingstone. We've only commenced to dig into the mind, and we have many theories and a few established facts. For instance, the primal instincts--"

He talked on, with David nodding now and then in apparent understanding, but with his thoughts far away. He knew the theories; a good many of them he considered poppyc.o.c.k. Dreams might come from the subconscious mind, but a good many of them came from the stomach. They might be safety valves for the mind, but also they might be rarebit. He didn't want dreams; what he wanted was facts. Facts and hope.

The office attendant came in. She was as tidy as the desk, as obsessed by order, as wooden. She placed a pad before the small man and withdrew.

He rose.

"Let me know if I can be of any further a.s.sistance, Doctor," he said.

"And I'll be glad to see your patient at any time. I'd like the record for my files."

"Thank you," David said. He stood fingering his hat.

"I suppose there's nothing to do? The dam will either break, or it won't."

"That's about it. Of course since the conditions that produced the setting up of the defensive machinery were unhappy, I'd say that happiness will play a large part in the situation. That happiness and a normal occupation will do a great deal to maintain the status quo.

Of course I would advise no return to the unhappy environment, and no shocks. Nothing, in other words, to break down the wall."

Outside, in the corridor, David remembered to put on his hat. Happiness and a normal occupation, yes. But no shock.

Nevertheless, he felt vaguely comforted, and as though it had helped to bring the situation out into the open and discuss it. He had carried his burden alone for ten years, or with only the additional weight of Lucy's apprehensions. He wandered out into the city streets, and found himself, some time later, at the railway station, without remembering how he got there.

Across from the station was a large billboard, and on it the name of Beverly Carlysle and her play, "The Valley." He stood for some time and looked at it, before he went in to buy his ticket. Not until he was in the train did he realize that he had forgotten to get his lunch.

He attended to his work that evening as usual, but he felt very tired, and Lucy, going in at nine o'clock, found him dozing in his chair, his collar half choking him and his face deeply suffused. She wakened him and then, sitting down across from him, joined him in the vigil that was to last until they heard the car outside.

She had brought in her sewing, and David pretended to read. Now and then he looked at his watch.

At midnight they heard the car go in, and the slamming of the stable door, followed by d.i.c.k's footsteps on the walk outside. Lucy was very pale, and the hands that held her sewing twitched nervously. Suddenly she stood up and put a hand on David's shoulder.

d.i.c.k was whistling on the kitchen porch.

VII

Louis Ba.s.sett was standing at the back of the theater, talking to the publicity man of The Valley company, Fred Gregory. Ba.s.sett was calm and only slightly interested. By the end of the first act he had realized that the star was giving a fine performance, that she had even grown in power, and that his sentimental memory of her was considerably dearer than the reality.

"Going like a house afire," he said, as the curtain fell.

Beside his robust physique, Gregory, the publicity man, sank into insignificance. Even his pale spats, at which Ba.s.sett had shot a contemptuous glance, his highly expensive tailoring, failed to make him appear more than he was, a little, dapper man, with a pale cold eye and a rather too frequent smile. "She's the best there is," was his comment.

He hesitated, then added: "She's my sister, you know. Naturally, for business reasons, I don't publish the relations.h.i.+p."

Ba.s.sett glanced at him.

"That so? Well, I'm glad she decided to come back. She's too good to bury."

But if he expected Gregory to follow the lead he was disappointed. His eyes, blank and expressionless, were wandering over the house as the lights flashed up.

"This whole tour has been a triumph. She's the best there is," Gregory repeated, "and they know it."

"Does she know it?" Ba.s.sett inquired.

"She doesn't throw any temperament, if that's what you mean. She--"

He checked himself suddenly, and stood, clutching the railing, bent forward and staring into the audience. Ba.s.sett watched him, considerably surprised. It took a great deal to startle a theatrical publicity man, yet here was one who looked as though he had seen a ghost.

After a time Gregory straightened and moistened his dry lips.

"There's a man sitting down there--see here, the sixth row, next the aisle; there's a girl in a blue dress beside him. See him? Do you know who he is?"

"Never saw him before."

For perhaps two minutes Gregory continued to stare. Then he moved over to the side of the house and braced against the wall continued his close and anxious inspection. After a time he turned away and, pa.s.sing behind the boxes, made his way into the wings. Ba.s.sett's curiosity was aroused, especially when, shortly after, Gregory reappeared, bringing with him a small man in an untidy suit who was probably, Ba.s.sett surmised, the stage manager.

He saw the small man stare, nod, stand watching, and finally disappear, and Gregory resume his former position and att.i.tude against the side wall. Throughout the last act Gregory did not once look at the stage. He continued his steady, unwavering study of the man in the sixth row seat next the aisle, and Ba.s.sett continued his study of the little man.

His long training made him quick to scent a story. He was not sure, of course, but the situation appeared to him at least suggestive. With the end of the play he wandered out with the crowd, edging his way close to the man and girl who had focused Gregory's attention, and following them into the street. He saw only a tall man with a certain quiet distinction of bearing, and a young and pretty girl, still flushed and excited, who went up the street a short distance and got into a small and shabby car.

Ba.s.sett noted, carefully, the license number of the car.