The Complete Works. Stanley G. Weinbaum
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piquant. Character, loyal, naturally happy, intelligent, but not serious. An intellectual butterfly; a dilettante. Poised, cool, self-possessed, yet inherently affectionate. A being untouched by reality, as yet, living in Chicago and in a make-believe world at the same time." He paused, "How old are you, Pat?"
"Twenty-two. Why?"
"I wondered how long one could manage to stay in the world of make-believe. I'm twenty-six, and I'm long exiled."
"I don't think you know what you mean by a make-believe world. I'm sure I don't."
"Of course you don't. You can't know and still remain there. It's like being happy; once you realize it, it's no longer perfect."
"Then don't explain!"
"Wouldn't make any difference if I did, Pat. It's a queer world, like the Sardoodledom of Sardou and the afternoon-tea school of playwrights. All stage-settings and pretense, but it looks real while you're watching, especially if you're one of the characters."
The girl laughed. "You're a deliciously solemn sort, Nick. How would you like to hear my analysis of you?"
"I wouldn't!"
"You inflicted yours on me, and I'm entitled to revenge. And so—you're intelligent, lazy, dreamy, and with a fine perception of artistic values. You're very alert to impressions of the senses—I mean you're sensuous without being sensual. You're delightfully serious without being somber, except sometimes. Sometimes I feel a hint, just a thrilling hint, in your character, of something dangerously darker—"
"Don't!" said Nick sharply.
Pat shot him a quick glance. "And you're frightened to death of falling in love," she concluded imperturbably.
"Oh! Do you think so?"
"I do."
"Then you're wrong! I can't be afraid of it, since I've known for the better part of a month that I've been in love."
"With me," said the girl.
"Yes, with you!"
"Well!" said Pat. "It never before took me a month to extract that admission from a man. Is twenty-two getting old?"
"You're a tantalizing imp!"
"And so?" She pursed her lips, assuming an air of disappointment. "What am I to do about it—scream for help? You haven't given me anything to scream about."
The kiss, Pat admitted to herself, was quite satisfactory. She yielded herself to the pleasure of it; it was decidedly the best kiss she had, in her somewhat limited experience, encountered. She pushed herself away finally, with a little gasp, gazing bright-eyed at her companion. He was staring down at her with serious eyes; there was a tense twist to his mouth, and a curiously unexpected attitude of unhappiness.
"Nick!" she murmured. "Was it as bad as all that?"
"Bad! Pat, does it mean you—care for me? A little, anyway?"
"A little," she admitted. "Maybe more. Is that what makes you look so forlorn?"
He drew her closer to him. "How could I look forlorn, Honey, when something like this has happened to me? That was just my way of looking happy."
She nestled as closely as the steering wheel permitted, drawing his arm about her shoulders. "I hope you mean that, Nick."
"Then you mean it? You really do?"
"I really do."
"I'm glad," he said huskily. The girl thought she detected a strange dubious note in his voice. She glanced at his face; his eyes were gazing into the dim remoteness of the night horizon.
"Nick," she said, "why were you so—well, so reluctant about admitting this? You must have known I—like you. I showed you that deliberately in so many ways."
"I—I wasn't quite sure."
"You were! That isn't it, Nick. I had to practically browbeat you into confessing you cared for me. Why?"
He stepped on the starter; the motor ground into sudden life. The car backed into the road, turning toward Chicago, that glared like a false dawn in the southern sky.
"I hope you never find out," he said.
2.
Science of Mind
"She's out," said Pat as the massive form of Dr. Carl Horker loomed in the doorway. "Your treatments must be successful; Mother's out playing bridge."
The Doctor gave his deep, rumbling chuckle. "So much the better, Pat. I don't feel professional anyway." He moved into the living room, depositing his bulk on a groaning davenport. "And how's yourself?"
"Too well to be a patient of yours," retorted the girl. "Psychiatry! The new religion! Just between friends, it's all applesauce, isn't it?"
"If I weren't trying to act in place of your father, I'd resent that, young lady," said the Doctor placidly. "Psychiatry is a definite science, and a pretty important one. Applied psychology, the science of the human mind."
"If said mind exists," added the girl, swinging her slim legs over the arm of a chair.
"Correct," agreed the Doctor. "In my practice I find occasional evidence that it does. Or did; your generation seems to have found substitutes."
"Which appears to work just as well!" laughed Pat. "All our troubles are more or less inherited from your generation."
"Touche!" admitted Dr. Horker. "But my generation also bequeathed you some solid values which you don't know how to use."
"They've been weighed and found wanting," said Pat airily. "We're busy replacing them with our own values."
"Which are certainly no better."
"Maybe not, Doc, but at least they're ours."
"Yours and Tom Paine's. I can't see that you young moderns have brought any new ideas to the social scheme."
"New or not, we're the first ones to give 'em a try-out. Your crowd took it out in talk."
"That's an insult," observed the Doctor cheerfully. "If I weren't acting in loco parentis—"
"I know! You'd give me a few licks in the spot popularly supposed to do the most good! Well, that's part of a parent's privilege, isn't it?"
"You've grown beyond the spanking age, my dear. Physically, if not mentally—though I don't say the process would hurt me as much as you. I'd doubtless enjoy it."
"Then you might try sending me to bed without my dinner," the girl laughed.
"That's a doctor's prerogative, Pat. I've even done that to your Mother."
"In other words, you're a complete flop as a parent. All the responsibilities, and none of the privileges."
"That expresses it."
"Well, you elected yourself, Doc. It's not my fault you happened to live next door."
"No. It's my misfortune."
"And I notice," remarked Pat wickedly, "that you're not too thoroughly in loco to neglect sending Mother a bill for services rendered!"
"My dear girl, that's part of the treatment!"
"So? And how?"
"I furnish a bill just steep enough to keep your mother from indulging too frequently in medical services. Without that little practical check on her inclinations, she'd be a confirmed neurotic. One of those sweet, resigned, professional invalids, you know."
"Then why not send her a bill tall enough to cure her altogether?"
"She might change to psychoanalysis or New Thought," chuckled the Doctor. "Besides, your father