see what it is.

"It _is_ somebody else--or something--but nobody I think that I ever
really knew. And at first I don't want to walk toward it--and then I do
because it keeps pulling me in spite of myself. So I go to it--hands out
so I won't knock over things.

"And then I touch it--or him--or her--and I'm suddenly very, very happy.

"That's all.

"And now, Dr. Billett, what would you say of my case?"

Ted's eyes are glowing--in the middle of her description his heart has
begun to knock to a hidden pulse, insistent and soft as the drum of gloved
fingers on velvet. He picks words carefully.

"I should say--Mrs. Severance--that there was something you needed and
wanted and didn't have at present. And that you would probably have it--in
the end."

She laughs a little. "Rather cryptic, isn't that, doctor? And you'd
prescribe?"

"Prescribe? 'It's an awkward matter to play with souls.'"

"'And trouble enough to save your own,'" she completes the quotation. "Yes,
that's true enough--though I'm sorry you can't even tell me to use this
twice a day in half a glass of water and that other directly after each
meal. I think I'll have to be a little more definite when it comes to your