His tone was heavily sarcastic.
"Of course I am not! I beg your pardon if my poor choice of language has conveyed any such impression. What I am trying to get at, doctor, in my inexpert way, is that I talked with this girl, and while I exchanged only a few words with her, nevertheless what she said—yes, and her bearing as well, her look, everything about her—impressed me as being entirely rational."
He fixed her with a hostile glare and at her he aimed a blunt gimlet of a forefinger.
"Are you quite sure you are entirely sane yourself?"
"I trust I am fairly normal."
"Got any little funny quirks in your brain? Any little temperamental crotchets in which you differ from the run of people round you? Think now!"
"Well," she confessed, "I don't like cats—I hate cats. And I don't like figured wall paper. And I don't like—"
"That will be sufficient. Take the first point: You hate cats. On that count alone any confirmed cat lover would regard you as being as crazy as a March hare. But until you start going round trying to kill other people's cats or trying to kill other people who own cats there's probably no danger that anyone will prefer charges of lunacy against you and have you locked up."
She smiled a little in spite of her earnestness.