“That rather shuts out effort, doesn’t it?  Well, I mean—­”

“Strivings?” Mr. Naylor smiled.  “Yes, it does.  On the other hand, it gives such free play.  That’s what makes him interesting, makes you think about him.”  He laughed.  “Oh, I dare say the surroundings help too—­we’re all rather children—­old Saffron, and the Devil, and Captain Duggle, and the rest of it!  The brain isn’t overworked down here; we like to find an outlet.”

“That means you think there’s nothing in it really?”

“In what?” retorted old Naylor briskly.

But Mary was equal to him.  “My lips are sealed professionally,” she smiled.  “But hasn’t your son said anything?”

“Admirable woman!  Yes, Alec has said a few things; and the young lady gives it us, too.  For my part, I think Beaumaroy’s just drifting.  He’ll take the gifts of fortune if they come, but I don’t think there’s much deliberate design about it.  Ah, now you’re smiling in a superior way, Doctor Mary!  I charge you with secret knowledge.  Or are you puffed up by having superseded Irechester?”

“I was never so distressed and—­well, embarrassed at anything in my life.”

“Well, that, if you ask me, does look a bit queer.  Sort of fits in with Alec’s theory.”

Mary’s discretion gave way a little.  “Or with Mr. Beaumaroy’s?  Which is that I’m a fool, I think.”

“And that Irechester isn’t?” His eyes twinkled in good-humored malice.  “Talking of what this and that person thinks of himself and of others, Irechester thinks himself something of an alienist.”

Her eyes grew suddenly alert.  “He’s never talked to me on that subject.”

“Perhaps he doesn’t think it’s one of yours.  Perhaps your studies haven’t lain that way?  After all, no medical man can study everything!”

“Don’t be naughty, Mr. Naylor” said Doctor Mary.

“He tells me that, in cases where the condition—­the condition I think he called it—­is in doubt, he fixes his attention on the eyes and the voice.  He couldn’t give me any very clear description of what he found in the eyes.  I couldn’t quite make out, anyhow, what he meant, unless it was a sort of meaninglessness, a want of what you might call intellectual focus.  Do you follow me?”

“Yes, I think I know what you mean.”

“But with regard to the voice I distinctly remember that he used the word ‘metallic.’”

“Why, that’s the word Cynthia used—­”

“I dare say it is.  It’s the word Alec used in describing the voice in which old Mr. Saffron recited his poem, or whatever it was, in bed.”

“But I’ve talked to Mr. Saffron; his voice isn’t like that; it’s a little high, but full and rather melodious.”

“Oh, well then—­” He spread out his hands, as though acknowledging a check.  “Still, the voice described as metallic seems to have been Mr. Saffron’s; at a certain moment at least.  As a merely medical question of some interest, I wonder if such a symptom or sign of—­er—­irritability could be intermittent, coming and going with the—­er—­fits!  Irechester didn’t say anything on that point.  Have you any opinion?”