FullReads

Mrs. Caswell started. “You grow more weird, every day, Constance. Yes–there was something else.”

“Mr. Davies?”

Mildred had risen. “Don’t–don’t–” she cried.

“Then you do really–care for him!” asked Constance mercilessly.

“No–no, a thousand times–no. How can I? I have put all such thoughts out of my mind–long ago.” She paused, then went on more calmly, “Constance, believe me or not–I am just as good a woman to- day as I was the day I married Forest. No–I would not even let the thought enter my head–never!”

For perhaps an hour after her friend had gone, Constance sat thinking. What should she do? Something must be done and soon. As she thought, suddenly the truth flashed over her.

Caswell had employed Drummond to shadow his wife in the hope that he might unearth something that might lead to a divorce. Drummond, like so many divorce detectives, was not averse to guiding events, to put it mildly. He had ingratiated himself, perhaps, with the clairvoyant and Davies. Constance had often heard before of clairvoyants and brokers who worked in conjunction to fleece the credulous. Now another and more serious element than the loss of money was involved. Added to them was a divorce detective–and honor itself was at stake. She remembered the doped cigarettes. She had heard of them before at clairvoyants’. She saw it all–Madame Cassandra playing on Mildred’s wounded affections, the broker on both that and her desire to be independent–and Drummond pulling the wires that all might take advantage of her woman’s frailty.

That moment Constance determined on action.

First she telephoned to deForest Caswell at his office. It was an unconventional thing to do to ask him to call, but she made some plausible pretext. She was surprised to find that he accepted it without hesitating. It set her thinking. Drummond must have told him something of her and he had thought this as good a time as any to face her. In that case Drummond would probably come too. She was prepared.

She had intended to have one last talk with Mildred, but had no need to call her. Utterly wretched, the poor little woman came in again to see her as she had done scores of times before, to pour out her heart. Forest had not come home to dinner, had not even taken the trouble to telephone. Constance did not say that she herself was responsible.

“Do you really want to know the truth about your dreams?” asked Constance, after she had prevailed upon Mildred to eat a little.

“I do know,” she returned.

“No, you don’t,” went on Constance, now determined to tell her the truth whether she liked it or not. “That clairvoyant and Mr. Davies are in league, playing you for a sucker, as they say.”

Mrs. Caswell did not reply for a moment. Then she drew a long breath and shut her eyes. “Oh, you don’t know how true what she says is to me. She–“

“Listen,” interrupted Constance. “Mildred, I’m going to be frank, brutally frank. Madame Cassandra has read your character, not the character as you think it is, but your unconscious, subconscious self. She knows that there is no better way to enter into the intimate life of a client, according to the new psychology, than by getting at and analyzing the dreams. And she knows that you can’t go far in dream analysis without finding sex. It is one of the strongest natural impulses, yet subject to the strongest repression, and hence one of the weakest points of our culture.

“She is actually helping along your alienation for that broker. You yourself have given me the clue in your dreams. Only I am telling you the truth about them. She holds it back and tells you plausible falsehoods to help her own ends. She is trying to arouse in you those passions which you have suppressed, and she has not scrupled to use drugged cigarettes with you and others to do it. You remember the breakfast dream, when I said that much could be traced back to dreams? A thing happens. It causes a dream. That in turn sometimes causes action. No, don’t interrupt. Let me finish first.