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serpents to the quiet manipulation of investments. I was to find out that his heritage was more than exaggerated, it was a disgraceful lie, although his wealth was not. He was financially unharmed by all market tremors and even benefited from every crisis. He’d acquired a stiff reputation for his handling of the family lumber business and the railroad line, which stretched west from its terminus, went on forever, its print bold and black as doctor’s stitches on the maps he had me trace with my fingers.
    “Our son could run this, why not?” he used to say, wistfully, to Placide. Of course she had no interest in bearing a son or daughter. When he tried to interest me in his doings, I would politely dip my head. I could no more make out and take fascination in the schemes, the maps, the enthusiasms in his office, the ins and outs, than my sister could allow her body to conceive.
    It was a shame, I thought, that Placide and I had not been fused into a single person. I would have done things with her looks, and there’s no question that she sorely needed brains. But we were woefully separate and single in our beings. Perhaps if we’d worked together, we could have managed John James Mauser. But too late. Once the laundry woman had begun to exert some sort of influence, my brother-in-law started acting on his own. He actually summoned a doctor who specialized in male diseases. The man made a house call all the way here from Chicago. The famous doctor arrived on a drizzly afternoon and after we took his raincoat, umbrella, rubber galoshes, and a hat away to dry and brush, he was shown upstairs, where he secluded himself with brother-in-law for most of a day.
     
    S EEKING TO enlighten myself on the particulars of brother-inlaw’s condition, for his own good of course, I was forced to eavesdrop. After the esteemed Dr. Fulmer had finally finished examining his patient, he stepped into the hall where I was sitting, waiting, knitting. I had practically completed two pairs of socks.
    “Put down those needles,” he glared at me from underneath his little band of black hair. “Are you the wife?”
    “No,” I answered, though a bolt of conceit pierced me.
    “Then fetch the wife!” he ordered.
    I went upstairs and, with difficulty, persuaded Placide to leave off detailing the hem of some figure’s majestic robe. She followed me downstairs, and I ushered them both into a small sitting room, knowing full well that there was a thin panel in the wall between the two rooms. Through that panel, by means of an ordinary water glass pressed to my ear, I was able to hear the entire conversation so clearly that on several occasions I had to bite my lip so as not to offer correct information. Placide, of course, distracted and immersed in her artistic pursuits, knew less than I of brother-inlaw’s diet, sleep, taking of the air, and general treatment.
    Placide had already hinted to me of her husband’s troublesome spermatorrhea, which he claimed was brought on by the practice of Karezza in the marital relation. So it did not surprise me to hear the doctor question my sister on the specifics of the practice laid out in Dr. Alice B. Stockham’s useful book. Placide had confided to me her terror of pregnancy, and I had laid aside my own longings for a nephew or niece in order to preserve Placide’s health. I had, of course, meant no harm when I placed the book in Placide’s hands, and in fact I still insist that Dr. Stockham’s adaptations of Zugassent’s practical methods of loving could, if sincerely practiced, improve the relations between the sexes and even save marriages.
    “Now I want you to be perfectly open with me, Mrs. Mauser,” said Dr. Fulmer. “Can you describe this practice of Karezza to me in exact physical terms?”
    Placide, of course, could not. Her modesty was a barrier. She tried her best to convey the spirit of the practice without resorting to crude word-pictures.
    “We exercise the mutual power of our