Twilight Sleep
clamations, and assurances that the surgeon was "perfectly satisfied," and that there was "no reason why the dreadful thing should ever reappear." In a wave of sympathetic emotion Pauline had leaned from the motor to kiss her and say: "Your mother must have a good rest at Atlantic City as soon as she can be moved—I'll arrange it. Sea air is such a tonic . . ." and Maisie had thanked and wept again. . . It was pleasant to be able, in a few words, to make any one so happy. . .
She had found Mrs. Swoffer too; found her in a super-terrestrial mood, beaming through inspired eye-glasses, and pouring out new torrents of stimulation.
Yes: Alvah Loft was a great man, Mrs. Swoffer said. She, for her part, had never denied it for a moment. How could Pauline have imagined that her faith in Alvah Loft had failed her? No—but there were periods of spiritual aridity which the brightest souls had to traverse, and she had lately had reason to suspect, from her own experience and from Pauline's, that perhaps Alvah Loft was at present engaged in such a desert. Certainly to charge a hundred dollars for a "triple treatment" (which was only three minutes longer than the plain one), and then produce no more lasting results—well, Mrs. Swoffer preferred not to say anything uncharitable. . . Then again, he sometimes suspected that Alvah Loft's doctrine might be only for beginners. That was what Sacha Gobine, the new Russian
