"Oh, it's easy enough to say wind," Rulledge indignantly protested.

"Too easy, I agree with you," Wanhope consented. "We cannot tell what
influences reach us from our environment, or what our environment really
is, or how much or little we mean by the word. The sense of danger seems
to be inborn, and possibly it is a survival of our race life when it was
wholly animal and took care of itself through what we used to call the
instincts. But, as I was saying, it was not danger that Ormond seemed to
be afraid of, if it came short of death. He was almost abnormally
indifferent to pain. I knew of his undergoing an operation that most
people would take ether for, and not wincing, because it was not supposed
to involve a fatal result.

"Perhaps he carried his own anodyne with him," said Minver, "like the
Chinese."

"You mean a sort of self-anaesthesia?" Wanhope asked. "That is very
interesting. How far such a principle, if there is one, can be carried in
practice. The hypnotists--"

"I'm afraid I didn't mean anything so serious or scientific," said the
painter.

"Then don't switch Wanhope off on a side track," Rulledge implored. "You
know how hard it is to keep him on the main line. He's got a mind that
splays all over the place if you give him the least chance. Now, Wanhope,
come down to business."

Wanhope laughed amiably. "Why, there's so very little of the business.
I'm not sure that it wasn't Mrs. Ormond's attitude toward the fact that