He murmured tentatively: "You have spoken with them—yes?"

"Yes—at least with one of them."

"The young man—the younger son?"

"Yes. On the train coming here from Kantara. He was standing in the corridor. I spoke to him." There was no self-consciousness in Sarah's manner. There was, indeed, no self-consciousness in her attitude to life. She was interested in humanity and was of a friendly though impatient disposition.

"What made you speak to him?" asked Gerard.

Sarah shrugged her shoulders. "Why not? I often speak to people traveling. I'm interested in people—in what they do and think and feel."

"You put them under the microscope, that is to say!"

"I suppose you might call it that," the girl admitted.

"And what were your impressions in this case?"

"Well"—she hesitated—"it was rather odd. . . . To begin with, the boy flushed right up to the roots of his hair."

"Is that so remarkable?" asked Gerard dryly.

Sarah laughed. "You mean that he thought I was a shameless hussy making advances to him? Oh, no, I don't think he thought that. Men can always tell, can't they?"

She gave him a frank, questioning glance. Dr. Gerard nodded his head.

"I got the impression," said Sarah, speaking slowly and frowning a little, "that he was—how shall I put it?—both excited and appalled. Excited out of all proportion—and quite absurdly apprehensive at the same time. Now that's odd, isn't it, because I've always found Americans unusually self-possessed. An American boy of twenty, say, has infinitely more knowledge of the world and far more savoir-faire than an English boy of the same age. And this boy must be over twenty."

"About twenty-three or four, I should say."

"As much as that?"

"I should think so."

"Yes . . . perhaps you're right . . . only, somehow, he seems very young. . . ."

"Maladjustment mentally. The 'child' factor persists."

"Then I am right? I mean, there is something not quite normal about him?"

Dr. Gerard shrugged his shoulders, smiling a little at her earnestness. "My dear young lady, are any of us quite normal? But I grant you that there is probably a neurosis of some kind."

"Connected with that horrible old woman, I'm sure!"

"You seem to dislike her very much," said Gerard, looking at her curiously.

"I do. She's got a—oh, a malevolent eye!"

Gerard murmured: "So have many mothers when their sons are attracted to fascinating young ladies!"

Sarah shrugged an impatient shoulder. Frenchmen were all alike, she thought, obsessed by sex! Though, of course, as a conscientious psychologist she herself was bound to admit that there was always an underlying basis of sex to most phenomena. Sarah's thoughts ran along a familiar psychological track. She came out of her meditations with a start. Raymond Boynton was crossing the room to the center table. He selected a magazine. As he passed her chair on his return journey she looked up at him and spoke: "Have you been busy sightseeing today?"

She selected her words at random; her real interest was to see how they would be received.