But Mary was equal to him. "My lips are sealed professionally," she smiled. "But hasn't your son said anything?"
"Admirable woman! Yes, Alec has said a few things; and the young lady gives it us too. For my part, I think Beaumaroy's just drifting. He'll take the gifts of fortune if they come, but I don't think there's much deliberate design about it. Ah, now you're smiling in a superior way, Doctor Mary! I charge you with secret knowledge. Or are you puffed up by having superseded Irechester?"
"I was never so distressed and—well, embarrassed—at anything in my life."
"Well, that, if you ask me, does look a bit queer. Sort of fits in with Alec's theory."
Mary's discretion gave way a little. "Or with Mr. Beaumaroy's? Which is that I'm a fool, I think."
"And that Irechester isn't?" His eyes twinkled in good-humoured malice. "Talking of what this and that person thinks—of himself and of others—Irechester thinks himself something of an alienist."
Her eyes grew suddenly alert. "He's never talked to me on that subject."
"Perhaps he doesn't think it's one of yours. Perhaps your studies haven't lain that way? After all, no medical man can study everything!"
"Don't be naughty, Mr. Naylor!" said Doctor Mary.
"He tells me that, in cases where the condition—the condition I think he called it—is in doubt, he fixes his attention on the eyes and the voice. He couldn't give me any very clear description of what he found in the eyes. I couldn't quite make out, anyhow, what he meant, unless it was a sort of meaninglessness—a want of what you might call intellectual focus. Do you follow me?"