xt. She was surprised to find that he accepted it
without hesitating. It set her thinking. Drummond must have told him
something of her and he had thought this as good a time as any to face
her. In that case Drummond would probably come too. She was prepared.

She had intended to have one last talk with Mildred, but had no need to
call her. Utterly wretched, the poor little woman came in again to see
her as she had done scores of times before, to pour out her heart.
Forest had not come home to dinner, had not even taken the trouble to
telephone. Constance did not say that she herself was responsible.

"Do you really want to know the truth about your dreams?" asked
Constance, after she had prevailed upon Mildred to eat a little.

"I do know," she returned.

"No, you don't," went on Constance, now determined to tell her the
truth whether she liked it or not. "That clairvoyant and Mr. Davies are
in league, playing you for a sucker, as they say."

Mrs. Caswell did not reply for a moment. Then she drew a long breath
and shut her eyes. "Oh, you don't know how true what she says is to me.
She--"

"Listen," interrupted Constance. "Mildred, I'm going to be frank,
brutally frank. Madame Cassandra has read your character, not the
character as you think it is, but your unconscious, subconscious self.
She knows that there is no better way to enter into the intimate life
of a client, according to the new psychology, than by getting at and
analyzing the dreams. And she knows that you can't go far in dream
analysis without finding sex. It is one of the strongest natural
impulses, yet subject to the strongest repression, and hence one of the
weakest points of our culture.

"She is actually helping along your alienation for that broker. You
yourself have given me the clue in your dreams. Only I am telling you
the truth about them. She holds it back and tells you plausible
falsehoods to help her own ends. She is trying to arouse in you those
passions which you have suppressed, and she has not scrupled to use
drugged cigarettes with you and others to do it. You remember the
breakfast dream, when I said that much could be traced back to dreams?
A thing happens. It causes a dream. That in turn sometimes causes
action. No, don't interrupt. Let me finish first.

"Take that first dream," continued Constance, rapidly thrusting home
her interpretation so that it would have its full effect. "You dreamed
that your husband was dying and you