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!"