Sarah shivered. "I know."

Gerard continued: "We see it all around us today—in political creeds, in the conduct of nations. A reaction from humanitarianism, from pity, from brotherly good will. The creeds sound well sometimes, a wise regime, a beneficent government—but imposed by force—resting on a basis of cruelty and fear. They are opening the door, these apostles of violence, they are letting out the old savagery, the old delight in cruelty for its own sake! Oh, it is difficult. Man is an animal very delicately balanced. He has one prime necessity—to survive. To advance too quickly is as fatal as to lag behind. He must survive! He must, perhaps, retain some of the old savagery, but he must not—no, definitely he must not—deify it!"

There was a pause. Then Sarah said: "You think old Mrs. Boynton is a kind of Sadist?"

"I am almost sure of it. I think she rejoices in the infliction of pain—mental pain, mind you, not physical. That is very much rarer and very much more difficult to deal with. She likes to have control of other human beings and she likes to make them suffer."

"It's pretty beastly," said Sarah.

Gerard told her of his conversation with Jefferson Cope.

"He doesn't realize what is going on?" she said thoughtfully.

"How should he? He is not a psychologist."

"True. He hasn't got our disgusting minds!"

"Exactly. He has a nice, upright, sentimental, normal American mind. He believes in good rather than evil. He sees that the atmosphere of the Boynton family is all wrong, but he credits Mrs. Boynton with misguided devotion rather than active maleficence."

"That must amuse her," said Sarah.

"I should imagine it does!"

Sarah said impatiently: "But why don't they break away? They could."

Gerard shook his head. "No, there you are wrong. They cannot. Have you ever seen the old experiment with a cock? You chalk a line on the floor and put the cock's beak to it. The cock believes he is tied there. He cannot raise his head. So with these unfortunates. She has worked on them, remember, since they were children. And her dominance has been mental. She has hypnotized them to believe that they cannot disobey her. Oh, I know most people would say that was nonsense—but you and I know better. She has made them believe that utter dependence on her is inevitable. They have been in prison so long that if the prison door stood open they would no longer notice! One of them, at least, no longer even wants to be free! And they would all be afraid of freedom."

Sarah asked practically: "What will happen when she dies?"

Gerard shrugged his shoulders. "It depends on how soon that happens. If it happened, well, I think it might not be too late. The boy and the girl are still young—impressionable. They would become, I believe, normal human beings. With Lennox, possibly, it has gone too far. He looks to me like a man who has parted company with hope—he lives and endures like a brute beast."