for
more years than you've lived, Allen, he worked out of doors. I don't
want to nag at you, but just give it a thought now and then. And let
me know if I can do anything for you, ever. My regards to your
sisters."

As he paused at the curb, a short man in heavy motoring furs stumbled
out of a luxurious landaulet and would have gone down on the
treacherous pavement without Stanchon's quick arm.

"All right, doctor, all right," he smiled, as he braced himself for the
little man's weight. "Glad I was here. I've just left Mary--she's
getting a little unmanageable, I hear."

"Yes, yes," the little man panted, "she'll do better out of the family.
Yes, yes. They often do, you know. Position's perfectly anomalous
here, you know--constant friction."

"I see," said Stanchon. "Let me walk up to the door with you--I've
practiced on the steps, once today. You make it ..."

"Oh, clear paranoia," Jarvyse finished the sentence promptly. "They go
right along, you know. Perfectly typical. Good days--yes. Of course.
Everybody encouraged. Come to a ladies' luncheon--fat in the fire
directly. No keeping servants, you know. All that sort of thing.
Ever show you my card-catalogue of women between thirty-eight and
thirty-nine? No? Ask me some day."

The younger man pressed the electric button and turned the bronze knob
of the outer door, wrought and decorated like some great public tomb.

"Thanks, I'd be interested," he said.

"You knew the brother, didn't you?" Jarvyse went on, breathing easier
in the warmth of the vestibule. "Nothing out of the way there?"

"Absolutely not. He had the constitution of a bull. But I fear he's
not handed it on to his son."

"Ugh, no! Nasty little cub. Those families don't last. Daughters
always stronger. I give him fifteen ... eighteen years," the alienist
said placidly.

The inner door opened and Stanchon turned to go.

"Come up and see the patient," Jarvyse suggested, over his shoulder,
one glove already off. "Pleased to have you, and so would she, of
course. You'll find her much happier."

* * * * *

But Miss Mary was not happier. Freed of the contemptuous _brusquerie_
of Edmund, the thinly-veiled dislike of the girls, the
conscience-stricken attempts of her sister-in-law, she had felt for a
time the relief of a strain abandoned, the comfort of a definite
position. They had come to see her, too, and their timid overtures of
interest,