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The choleric brows went up like twin stress marks accenting unspoken skepticism.

“A child–of twenty-four?” he commented ironically.

“A child, measured by my age or yours. As I told you, I met her quite accidentally. She appealed to me so–such a plucky, helpless, friendless little thing she seemed with those hideous leather straps binding her.”

“Do you mean to imply that she was being mistreated by those who had her in charge?”

“No, her escorts–or attendants or warders or guards or whatever one might call them–seemed kindly enough, according to their lights. But she was so quiet, so passive that I–“

“Well, would you expect anyone who felt a proper sense of responsibility to suffer dangerous maniacs to run at large without restraint or control of any sort upon their limbs and their actions?”

“But, doctor, that is just the point–are you so entirely sure that she is a dangerous maniac? That is what I want to ask you–whether there isn’t a possibility, however remote, that a mistake may conceivably have been made? Please don’t misunderstand me,” she interjected quickly, seeing how he–already stiff and bristly–had at her words stiffened and bristled still more. “I do not mean to intimate that anything unethical has been done. In fact I am quite sure that everything has been quite ethical. And I am not questioning your professional standing or decrying your abilities.

“But as I understand it, neither you nor Doctor Malt is avowedly an alienist. I assume that neither of you has ever specialized in nervous or mental disorders. Such being the case, don’t you agree with me–this idea has just occurred to me–that if an alienist, a man especially versed in these things rather than a general practitioner, however experienced and competent, were called in even now–“

“And you just said you were not reflecting upon my professional abilities!”

His tone was heavily sarcastic.

“Of course I am not! I beg your pardon if my poor choice of language has conveyed any such impression. What I am trying to get at, doctor, in my inexpert way, is that I talked with this girl, and while I exchanged only a few words with her, nevertheless what she said–yes, and her bearing as well, her look, everything about her–impressed me as being entirely rational.”

He fixed her with a hostile glare and at her he aimed a blunt gimlet of a forefinger.

“Are you quite sure you are entirely sane yourself?”

“I trust I am fairly normal.”

“Got any little funny quirks in your brain? Any little temperamental crotchets in which you differ from the run of people round you? Think now!”

“Well,” she confessed, “I don’t like cats–I hate cats. And I don’t like figured wall paper. And I don’t like–“

“That will be sufficient. Take the first point: You hate cats. On that count alone any confirmed cat lover would regard you as being as crazy as a March hare. But until you start going round trying to kill other people’s cats or trying to kill other people who own cats there’s probably no danger that anyone will prefer charges of lunacy against you and have you locked up.”

She smiled a little in spite of her earnestness.

“Perhaps it is symptomatic of a lesion in my brain that I should be concerning myself in the case of a strange girl whom I have seen but once–is that also in your thoughts, Doctor McGlore?”

“We’ll waive that,” he said. “For the sake of argument we’ll concede that your indicative peculiarities assume a harmless phase at present. But this Vinsolving girl’s case is different–hers were not harmless. Her acts were amply conclusive to establish proof of her mental condition.”

“From the district attorney’s statement to me I rather got the impression that she did not indulge in any abnormal conduct while before you for examination.”

“Did he tell you of her blank refusal to answer the simplest of the questions my associate and I put to her?”

“Doctor,” she countered, seeking to woo him into a better humor, “would you construe silence on a woman’s part as necessarily a mark of insanity? It is a rare thing, I concede. But might it not sometimes be an admirable thing as well?”