I knew I was in for a bad attack.
I always do when I get away from home. Reaction I suppose. I put up the
devil of a fight, and then when I felt it was whacking me I wrote to
you."
"Well, I said I'd come, didn't I? And I waited," she reminded him.
"Yes, and then I saw you talking to that idiotic fellow in a high
collar, and I thought, 'Oh, everything be damned!' So I chummed up to
the pock-marked chap. He was glad enough to have me! Wants me to play
poker."
He buried his face, and she could scarcely hear his words.
"Oh, God," he muttered, "you can see how it is! All the time I'm not
drunk I'm worrying and thinking what a hell of a mess I've made of
things. Th-the minute I'm even sniffing whisky 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.
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