Dr. Martineau.

"It meant too much to him. But of course his ideas were splendid. You
know it is one of my hopes to get some sort of book done, explaining his
ideas. He would never write. He despised it--unreasonably. A real thing
done, he said, was better than a thousand books. Nobody read books, he
said, but women, parsons and idle people. But there must be books. And
I want one. Something a little more real than the ordinary official
biography.... I have thought of young Leighton, the secretary of the
Commission. He seems thoroughly intelligent and sympathetic and really
anxious to reconcile Richmond's views with those of the big business men
on the Committee. He might do.... Or perhaps I might be able to persuade
two or three people to write down their impressions of him. A sort
of memorial volume.... But he was shy of friends. There was no man he
talked to very intimately about his ideas unless it was to you... I wish
I had the writer's gift, doctor."

Section 7

It was on the second afternoon that Lady Hardy summoned Dr. Martineau
by telephone. "Something rather disagreeable," she said. "If you could
spare the time. If you could come round.

"It is frightfully distressing," she said when he got round to her, and
for a time she could tell him nothing more. She was having tea and she
gave him some. She fussed about with cream and cakes and biscuits. He
noted a crumpled letter thrust under the edge of the silver tray.

"He talked, I know, very intimately with you," she said, coming to it at
last. "He probably went into things with you that he never talked about
with anyone else. Usually he was very reserved, Even with me there were
things about which he said nothing."

"We did," said Dr. Martineau with discretion, "deal a little with his
private life.

"There was someone--"

Dr. Martineau nodded and then, not to be too portentous, took and bit a
biscuit.

"Did he by any chance ever mention someone called Martin Leeds?"

Dr. Martineau seemed to reflect. Then realizing that this was a mistake,
he said: "He told me the essential facts."

The poor lady breathed a sigh of relief. "I'm glad," she said simply.
She repeated, "Yes, I'm glad. It makes things easier now."

Dr. Martineau looked his enquiry.

"She wants to come and see him."

"Here?"

"Here! And Helen here! And the servants noticing everything! I've never
met her. Never set eyes on her. For all I know she may want to make a
scene." There was