“She’s a woman with any amount of heart, any amount.  I’ve proved that.”  He paused, looked sentimental, and continued, “Proved it up to the hilt.  But she’s a little bit capricious.  She wants to be taken the right way.  I can do anything with her.”

He touched his rose-coloured tie, and pulled up one of his rose-coloured socks.

“And the husband?” Isaacson asked, with a detached manner.  “D’you find him difficult?”

“Between ourselves, very!”

“That’s bad.”

“He tries her very much, I’m afraid, though he pretends, of course, to be devoted to her.  And she’s simply an angel to him.”

“Hard on her!”

“I sympathize with her very much.  Of course, she’s told me nothing.  She’s too loyal.  But I can read between the lines.  Tell me, though.  Do you think him very bad?”

“Very.”

Isaacson spoke without emotion, as if out of a solely medical mind.

“You don’t—­ah—­you don’t surely think him in any danger?”

Isaacson slightly shrugged his shoulders.

“But—­h’m—­but about the sunstroke!  If it isn’t sunstroke—?”

Hartley waited for an interruption.  None came.

“If it isn’t sunstroke entirely, the question is, what is it?”

Isaacson looked at him in silence.

“Have you formed any definite opinion?” said Hartley, at last bringing himself to the point.

“I should have to watch the case, if only for a day or two before giving any definite opinion.”

“Well, but—­informally, what do you think about it?  What did you mean upstairs about unless very great care was taken a—­a—­medical reputation might be—­er—­ruined over it.  ‘Ruined’ is a very strong word, you know.”

The egoist was evidently very much alarmed.

“And then you said that very possibly I might regret ever having had anything to do with it.  That was another thing.”

Isaacson looked down meditatively.

“I didn’t, and I don’t, understand what your meaning could have been.”

“Doctor Hartley, I can’t say very much.  A doctor of any reputation who is at all known in the great world has to be guarded.  This is not my case.  If it were, things would be different.  I may have formed an opinion or not.  In any event, I cannot give it at present.  But I am an older man than you.  I have had great experience, and I should be sorry to see a rising young physician, with probably a big future before him, get into deep waters.”

“Deep waters?”

Isaacson nodded gravely.

“Mrs. Armine may think this illness is owing to a sunstroke.  But she may be wrong.  It may be owing to something quite different.  I believe it is.”

“But what?  What?”

“That has to be found out.  You are here to find it out.”

“I—­I really believe a consultation—­”

He hesitated.

“But there’s her great dislike of you!” he concluded, naively.