"I suppose," she went on, as if following her own thoughts, "what Li Ho calls the moon-devil is really a disease. Have you ever told Dr. John about father, Benis? What did he say?" The professor fidgeted. "Oh, nothing much. He couldn't, you know, without more data. But he thinks his periodical spells may be a kind of masked epilepsy. There are some symptoms which look like it. The way the attacks come on, with restlessness and that peculiar steely look in the eye, the unreasoning anger and especially the—er—general indications." The professor came to a stammering end, suddenly remembering that she did not know that last and worst of the moon-devil symptoms.
"It is hereditary, of course," said Desire calmly.
The professor jumped.
"My dear girl! What an idea."
"An idea which I could not very well escape. All these things tend to transmit themselves, do they not? Only not necessarily so. I seem to have escaped."
"Yes," shortly. "Surely you have never supposed—"
"No. I haven't. That's the odd part of it. I have never been the least bit afraid. Perhaps it's because I have never felt that I have anything at all in common with father. Or it may be because I have never faced facts. I don't know. Even now, when I am facing facts, they do not seem really to touch me. I never pretended to understand father. He seemed like two or three people, all strangers. Sometimes he was just a rather sly old man full of schemes for getting money without working for it, and very clever and astute. Sometimes he seemed a student and a scholar—this was his best mood. It was during this phase that he wrote his scientific articles and taught me all that I know. His own knowledge seemed to be an orderly confusion o>f all kinds of things. And he could be intensely interesting when he chose. In those moods he treated me with a certain courtesy which may have been a remnant of an earlier manner. But it never lasted long."
"And the other mood—the third one?"
"Oh, that Well, that was the bad mood. If it is a disease he was not responsible. So' we won't talk of it." Desire's lips tightened. "He usually went away in the hills when the restlessness came on. And I fancy Li Ho—watched."
"Good old Li Ho!"