y I see everything in a
warm, rosy glow. When I'm not drunk everyone's an enemy; when I'm drunk
they're all jolly good fellows. Marcella, I'm alone on earth, and I
don't want to be."

She sat there, impatient with herself for her ignorance, her hands
clasping and unclasping each other nervously.

"Louis--" she began. She could get no further. "Louis--what's one to do?
You say you're a doctor and understand yourself. It seems to me you've
really a disease, haven't you? Just as much as--as measles?"

"Of course it's a disease! But don't you see how hopeless it is? It's a
disease in which the nurse and the doctor both get the huff with the
patient because he's such a damned nuisance to them! And he, poor devil,
by the very nature of the disease, fights every step of the treatment."

There was a long silence. At last she put her hand on his arm.

"You know you want to be happy, don't you? You say you don't want to be
lonely. That's why you drink the miserable stuff, to make you forget
that you're unhappy and friendless."

"Yes--you do understand, you see," he cried eagerly.

"Well, this is where I'm so puzzled. I'm quite happy, and I always
think people are my friends. What I want to know is what is there inside
us two that's different?"

He shook his head impatiently.

"It's in my family," he began, and she felt it on the tip of her tongue
to tell him it was in hers too, but something stopped her. "And it's a
hunger--absolutely an unendurable hunger."

"Were you always frightened of things?" she said, a little wonderingly.

"No--I was always nervy and shy and repressed. But this is a vicious
circle, don't you see? A thing is called a vicious circle in medicine
when cause and effect are so closely linked that you can't tell which is
which. At home I was repressed; that was the fashion in my young days.
The motto was, 'Children are to be seen and not heard.' I dodged
visitors always; when I met them by any chance I was always a fool with
them, blinking and stammering like anything. When I was first at the
hospital among men I was gawky until quite by chance I discovered that
whisky made me graceful, stopped the stammering, gave me a surprising
flow of eloquence and made me feel a damned fine chap. Naturally I went
at it like anything, and of course after each burst was more nervous
than ever. It plays havoc with your nerves, you know. And in addition
I had a sense of guilt.--Oh, damn life!"

"Yes," she said slo