Page:Man's Country (1923).pdf/294

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listlessness and despondency verging on despair that he waked up to the fact that there was something absolutely abnormal in the state of relations with his wife.

"What the devil is the matter with me," he burst out savagely at himself, "that I can't make one little woman happy?"

That was his position in general upon this matter until there happened into Detroit an eminent practitioner of psychoanalysis, summoned from New York as an expert witness in a will case of Ralph Tracey's in which subconscious mental histories were involved. For three days it was a cause célèbre, and for that period of time the Detroit papers were full of talk about this strange science of diagnosis by dreams.

On the evening before the specialist's departure, the Traceys gave him a little dinner at their home. Among the dozen guests were George and Fay and Sir Brian. The noted guest, large of face and body, proved also a large-brained person with engaging manners and a most agreeable willingness to discourse about his favorite theme.

"Beware how you tell me your dreams!" he challenged, and at once every one was offering what he deemed a discreetly censored sample of his dream life; but the doctor's ready interpretations and keen deductions were disconcerting as well as intriguing. Some he interpreted fully,