"Oh, Runkle, I don't think it's that; he's not the ordinary type of Indian, I'm convinced. He's got some purpose here."
"Pooh, nonsense, my dear Aspasia! Purpose? Ridiculous! I should hope I know how to deal with the creatures by this time. Don't you begin this sort of nerve business, too—I shall begin to think," said poor Sir Arthur, running a distracted hand through his grey curls, "that there's something about this pestilent place that's driving everybody crazy." Again he caught himself up with a deep sigh on the last word. "I shall give Master Muhammed his lesson to-morrow. I don't require to be taught how to manage the cattle—under the heel, my dear, under the heel! To-night——" He paused. "Aspasia," he lowered his voice: "I am addressing you in the utmost confidence, relying upon your good sense and judgment. Listen to me calmly and answer me with truth absolute. Have you ever noticed any symptom in your poor aunt...?"
He had leant forward to drop these words mysteriously into her ear; now he straightened himself, shook his head, and tapped his forehead.
"Uncle Arthur...!" gasped the girl, her pretty round face suddenly pinched and small, her eyes abnormally large. What, indeed, were such trivial speculations as a Pathan's possible yearning for Sir Arthur's blood to so hideous a suggestion as this? Here was her own hidden terror of all these weeks voiced calmly, judicially; in acknowledgment of, almost in resignation to, an accomplished fact.
"You can't mean——" she stammered.
"My dear," said Sir Arthur, with melancholy triumph, "I am in very serious anxiety. Your aunt's manner to-night, the things she has said to me just now, her actions, her looks—I can only explain them, heartrending as it is to me to have to admit it, in one way."
"Poor Aunt has got neurasthenia," faltered the unhappy Baby.
"My dear Aspasia," said Sir Arthur; "may it be only that! I pray it may be only that. But the affair is too serious. I shall have the best professional advice to-morrow, the first mental specialist in England."
"What!" screamed Aspasia, suddenly scarlet to the roots of her hair; "you're never going to get a horrid mad doctor for poor darling Aunt Rosamond?"
"My dear Aspasia!" ejaculated he, beating down the sound of her crude words with his hands. "It is my duty, Aspasia, to get the best advice, the best treatment, at the earliest possible opportunity. And it is your duty," he said, fixing his eyes sternly upon her, "to tell me everything that can conduce to a better knowledge of her state."