rugged the fall he was fifty. Still with reason, Mrs. van der Veere
was anxious, an anxiety shared by the family doctor. Between them they
planned for him a sort of model life, truly a circumscribed life, and
for five years wife and associates protected him from any possible
strain, and for five years it worked successfully. Then in less than a
month, almost like a bolt from the blue, all former symptoms returned,
aggravated in form, bringing most unwelcome new ones in their trail.
The family doctor called in a neurologist who, after examining the
nervous man, spoke seriously of serious possibilities, and advised
serious measures.

Mr. van der Veere was now fifty-five years old, short, almost stocky
in build, dark-skinned, with steel-gray hair and mustache. He was
depressed in mien though always well-bred in bearing. He was not
excitable and outwardly showed little of his suffering. Clifford van
der Veere had always taken life and his duties seriously. For years
his fear of making mistakes had been a chronic source of energy
leakage-now it was a nightmare. All he did cost an exhausting price in
the effort of decision. Duty and fear had long made a battle-ground of
his soul, and when he realized that he had broken down again from
"overwork," as they all expressed it, the depression of melancholy was
added to the weight he so quietly bore. Yet this man of many
responsibilities and interests had never truly worked. Since he left
college he had played at work. Effort had been expended never more
conscientiously. He was ever ready to give added hours of attention to
problems referred to him. His intentions were true, but he did not
know how to work. He did not know how to separate the serious from the
unimportant, and he had never added the leaven of humor to the day's
duties. An unusually well-equipped man, physically and mentally, he
should have found the responsibilities of his administratorship but