"Well, she heard me opening the door with my key, and she called to me: 'Martha, is that you? Come in here!' she said to me. And I went into her living room; and there was that man. A great big, tall man, walking around with his hands in his pockets. She was sitting at her desk, pretending to be looking at an account book. 'This is my brother,' she said to me. And he never took his hands out of his pockets. He said to me, growling, 'I am not her brother!' just like that. And she said, 'Oh, all right, then, you aren't. You aren't any relation to me!' You know how she thinks she can carry anything off, that way. Of course I felt terribly embarrassed. I just got my stuff and fled. That man was staying in my bedroom. His things were there. Did you ever hear anything like that in your life, mother? The nerve of her! With all that practice, and everybody thinking she's so respectable! Nobody thinks she's crazy. I'm glad I didn't burn up the first copy of my book."
"But, Martha, look here! That doesn't prove that he's—that doesn't prove anything."
"Don't you fool yourself! I saw the man; I saw his face. You can't tell me what a man means when he looks like that. And, anyway, Miss Curtis saw me coming in. I bet she's in cahoots with her! She said, 'You haven't been at the doctor's, have you?' like that, sort of excited. I said: 'Yes, I have. I thought she would have been at the concert.' She said, 'You oughtn't to have gone there when she has company.' And she didn't know whether to go on and say any more to me, or not. But she didn't. So now I stay there, just as I always did. If I'm mad, she's mad."
"But you're just silly. I don't think either of you is the least speck insane!"
"Well, what did that oily old bird send me to that—woman for then?"
"I don't know. Maybe she was a psychologist—or a—a psychoanalyst, or something. What was in the novel? You must be reasonable, Martha. The university isn't keeping a woman just to send students to asylums. She has something else to do, surely?"
"I don't think she has; not for a minute! If you'd seen that campus, you'd think it kept a dozen specialists to weed out the nuts. And, anyway, why did that prof. act so sort of gentle to me? Why did he ask me so carefully if I was Martha Kenworthy, as if he couldn't believe I was? Anyway, I'll tell you one thing, mammie; if the doctor can keep a lover and a practice in the same apartment, I should hope I can learn interior decoration without anybody saying anything to me! Just imagine if anybody tried to make things uncomfortable for the doctor; wouldn't she tell them where to get off, though! If she can put that across, why can't I?"
"Martha, really, I don't believe this. She doesn't look like that sort of woman."
"Well, of COURSE she doesn't! That's the whole point! Look at the women that go parading around Hyde Park. None of them look it; neither do I, for that matter. I don't suppose there's one of them that's any better than I am; and they're not making any fuss about what's happened! I can be as hardboiled as any of them; I can put on holy airs with the rest of them; I'm understudying the doctor!"
"Well, my opinion is that you're both of you good women and useful women, and you don't need to put on airs!"