(‘Howard, is this true? Why didn’t you tell me?’)

(‘Oh, shut up, Bell.’)

(‘Do you belong to the new race of men, beautiful?’)

‘Now I’m sure Dr. Kamerkink will back me up in saying that the comparatively new science of psychiatry has developed to a point where they can cure a twisted mind just as they cure a twisted foot, and I happen to know slightly the most wonderful psychiatrist in New York: Dr. George Janissary. His patients look up to him with absolute reverence — and, mind you, they’re not a bunch of hysterical spinsters, but a lot of them are brokers and engineers and college professors and doctors, too. Why, ever so many of them come back to him every year.’

Annabel snorted: ‘If a doctor cured my twisted foot but I had to go back every year, I’d think he was a bum untwister.’

‘For heaven’s sake, Annabel, will you please permit ME, at least, to be serious?’

(‘Butting in again . . . Gimmes.’ Annabel’s mutter was like the muted bark of a small dog that has been told to dry up.)

‘I ventured to talk over all this with Dr. Janissary when I was in New York on my last buying trip, and he says it would be a cinch — very common psychosis, mild delusions of grandeur — and he says he can easily guide Father into getting well.’

Through it all, though she had not glibly interrupted like Annabel, Hazel had looked shocked. She stammered now, ‘B-but did this doctor make a diagnosis just from what you told him?’

‘After all, a daughter, and living right in the same house with her father, ought to understand him, if she’s reasonably intelligent.’

(‘If!’ from Annabel.)

Hazel struggled on, ‘I’m perfectly certain you’re wrong. I’ve never known your father clearer-headed.’

‘But you’ll admit, Mother, it wouldn’t hurt Father to SEE Dr. Janissary? Weren’t you glad when he had his general physical examination?’

‘Ye-es . . . though he did crow so, afterwards!’

‘And what do you think, Doctor?’

Dr. Kamerkink said benignly, ‘Well, I don’t suppose it would hurt Fred any, though I certainly don’t see any need,’ but he barely got it out, so vigorously did Hazel take over the conference:

‘Sara! Listen to me for a moment — even if I am only your mother! Strikes me this all comes down to how honest a man your Janissary person is. I’m not so behind-the-times that I don’t know that psychiatry, or however you pronounce it, does do wonders; helps ever so many people get straight what it is that’s worrying them. But to a lot of folks, and I confess I’m one of ’em, it still seems a little like magic, and if they depended on a psychiatrist that was money-grabbing, and if they thought he was an all-powerful medicine man, wouldn’t it be dangerous? Seems to me I have heard about American women going to Europe and getting into the clutches of fancy psychologists . . .’