She nodded dutifully, but her attitude did not seem to please Kennedy thoroughly.
"Don't force yourself to think," he hastened. "Let your ideas flow naturally. It depends altogether on your paying attention to the words, undivided attention, and answering as quickly as you can. Remember—the first word that comes into your mind. Don't change it—no matter what it is, even if it seems trivial and of no consequence. It's very easy to do and it won't take long. Call it a game if you will. But take it seriously."
"Suppose I refuse to do it?" she suggested.
Kennedy merely shrugged. "I hardly think you will do that," he smiled quietly. "Besides, it will be over soon."
She leaned back in the easy-chair in which she had been sitting, and Kennedy took it as a tacit consent to the test.
From the paper, as I placed myself at a table, with the list of words and the blank columns before me, he read the first word, quickly and incisively, "Foot."
"Shoe," countered Honora quickly, then gazed at him to see whether she had caught the idea of what it was he wanted her to do.
"Very good," nodded Kennedy, reassuringly. "That's the thing."
I wrote down the word and when I had finished I could see from the corner of my eye that Kennedy also had noted the time, marking down "2-5," which I took to mean two-fifths of a second.
"Gray," he repeated next.