sider, they can't recall a dozen words a day. But they always
insist, at first, that she gives them detailed orders and criticises
them constantly. It's funny."

"Oh, well," I broke in impatiently, "never mind her! Tell me about Mr.
Vail--how long has he been there?"

"He's been there six months!" Will announced triumphantly, suppressing
a delighted smile at my amazement.

"Six months! And nobody knows?"

"Nobody but the family. Oh, he gets out, now and then: I or one of the
doctors goes with him and he puts in a day at the office. Everybody
thinks he's travelling or taking electric light baths for his liver or
Roentgen rays for his lungs or osteopathy for a cold in the head--Lord
knows what!"

"A day at the office? But how can he, if he's insane?"

"He's not too insane to make money." His smile was deliberately
intended to intrigue me, I thought.

"He's no more insane than I am!" I cried. "Who put him there?"

"The Countess of Barkington--primarily. Abbriglia agreed, but _they'd_
never have done it alone--Irene's too fond of the old fellow."

"Do you mean to say----"

"Oh, don't get excited, aunty--he committed himself. Nobody roped and
gagged him."

"But what doctor----"

"Two besides me."

"Besides you? Why, Will!"

"Oh, I didn't say that I recommended him to an asylum. Not at all. If
he had fought it, I could have found reasons on the other side."

"Like a corporation lawyer!"

"Oh, well...."

He began rolling cigarettes; they were his one weakness.

"The question is," he said slowly, "what is insanity? Medical
insanity's one job, legal insanity's another.... Suppose your butler
was convinced of the fact that he was Napoleon: would you care a
continental, provided he buttlered as per contract? So long as he
didn't shout, '_Tete d'armee!_' as he passed the salad, what would you
care? It's quite possible that he has some such delusion, for all you
know."

"Of course, I see that."

"There was that old nurse of ours--Esther, you know? To the day of her
death she swore that the druggist on the corner of Hartwell Street was
Charley Ross--the child that was abducted long ago. You couldn't argue
her out of it nor laugh her out of it--she said she had a feeling. She
brought us up in it, you know, and for years I believed that he was
Charley Ross and regarded him with veneration. She was a perfectly
good nurse, just the same. But that idiotic fancy was part of her
life--stren