"But that isn't what I asked you out for," he began. "I thought you'd
be interested in seeing--Oh, Mrs. Leeth, how are you?"

"Very well, thank you, doctor."

A busy, quiet, elderly woman, plainly dressed, cut across our path
through the long conservatory.

"Everything all right to-day?"

"Everything, I think, thank you, doctor."

There was nothing to remark about her until she lifted her eyes, and
then the curious, intense depth of them (like a dog who could speak, I
thought), held me almost breathless with sympathy. She looked,
somehow, as if she had gone through more than would be right for her to
tell.

"Poor creature," I said as she disappeared through a baize door. "Tell
me about her. What is her trouble?"

"She has none that I know of," he replied quietly. "She's the
housekeeper."

"Good Heavens, Will! I think I should go mad myself, if I lived here!
How does one tell them apart?"

"I don't think one does, always," he remarked placidly. "I sometimes
think that accounts for a good deal! There's a man, now--see that
fussy little fellow getting out of his motor coat? That's Jarvyse."

"_The_ Jarvyse? The great specialist?"

"That's it," he grunted with a disrespectful grin. "From my point of
view, you know, aunty, he might about as well stay in, now he's here.
I wouldn't go too near him, if I were you--he'll say you're a
paranoiac, if you mention your prejudice against free silver or thick
soup at dinner or steam heat. Everything's been paranoia with him
since 1902. It's just as much an _idee fixe_ as anybody's here. If
you object to anything he says, he diagnoses you immediately. You
couldn't build asylums fast enough to hold all Jarvyse's paranoiacs!
That's why I'm here, by the way; the case I want you to see is really
father's. But he loses his temper so, when he meets Jarvyse, that he
sends me up, instead. The old boy doesn't bother me--'Morning, doctor."

We stepped into a noiseless lift and he ran it to the fourth floor. At
the end of the corridor an open door showed a pleasant little interior;
a window full of red geraniums, goldfish in a globe, an immense grey
cat by a little Franklin stove with brass balls atop, and in the centre
a round old-fashioned mahogany table piled high with various household
linen. We walked directly into this little home-like picture--a great
relief after the lavish publicity of the immense halls--and as I
greeted the housekeeper, who stood by