"I know positively that he would refuse to go to such a place as that you mentioned."
Carfew rose, and took a few turns about the room. Then he came and stood near, looking down at her keenly.
"Mrs. Chesney," he said, "your husband was within an ace of death, last night. I will not enter into medical detail. Only the prompt intelligence of his servant saved him. Do you propose allowing him to destroy himself rather than face his anger?"
"It isn't the question of his anger alone, Doctor Carfew. It is the question of his family—of his mother. I would not be justified in acting alone. Lady Wychcote must be consulted."
Carfew looked at her intently. His eyebrows were yellow-grey like his hair, and curled also. His eyes seemed buried in them as in hairy nests—like pale, blue eggs, Sophy thought drearily, as she gazed at their hard convex.
"What is Lady Wychcote like? Is she a reasonable woman?" asked Carfew.
Exhausted and wretched as she was, almost Sophy could have smiled. The contrast between the actual Lady Wychcote and the "reasonable woman" surmised by Carfew struck her as so painfully droll.
"Not always, I fear," she said gently.
"Quite so. Just as I thought. A blind alley. Will you tell this ... er ... not always reasonable lady, from me—from Algernon Carfew—that her son is the same as lost to her if she cannot find sufficient reasonableness to have him committed to a sanatorium for his own good?"
"Yes—I will tell her."