At such moments the sense of suffocation, of smothering for lack of space in which to breathe, had driven him like a hunted creature out into the streets.

It was not long before he discovered that certain persons brought this feeling of oppression more quickly than others, that the presence of Margaret or of his parents stifled him, while Corinna made him feel as if a window had been suddenly flung open.

The doctors, of course, had talked in scientific terms of diseased nerves and a specialist whom his mother had called in on one occasion had tried first to probe into the secrets of his infancy and afterward to analyse his symptoms away.

But the war, among other lessons, had taught him that one must not take either one's sensations or scientific opinion too seriously, and he had contrived at last to turn the whole thing into the kind of family joke that his father could understand.

Outwardly he took up his life as before; if the penalty of depression was psychoanalysis, it was worth while to pretend at least to be gay.