"About twenty-three or four, I should say."

"As much as that?"

"I should think so."

"Yes… perhaps you're right… only, somehow, he seems very young…"

"Maladjustment mentally. The 'child' factor persists."

"Then I am right? I mean, there is something not quite normal about him?"

Dr. Gerard shrugged his shoulders, smiling a little at her earnestness. "My dear young lady, are any of us quite normal? But I grant you that there is probably a neurosis of some kind."

"Connected with that horrible old woman, I'm sure!"

"You seem to dislike her very much," said Gerard, looking at her curiously.

"I do. She's got a-oh, a malevolent eye!"

Gerard murmured: "So have many mothers when their sons are attracted to fascinating young ladies!"

Sarah shrugged an impatient shoulder. Frenchmen were all alike, she thought, obsessed by sex! Though, of course, as a conscientious psychologist she herself was bound to admit that there was always an underlying basis of sex to most phenomena. Sarah's thoughts ran along a familiar psychological track. She came out of her meditations with a start. Raymond Boynton was crossing the room to the center table. He selected a magazine. As he passed her chair on his return journey she looked up at him and spoke: "Have you been busy sightseeing today?"

She selected her words at random; her real interest was to see how they would be received.

Raymond half stopped, flushed, shied like a nervous horse and his eyes went apprehensively to the center of his family group. He muttered: "Oh-oh, yes-why, yes, certainly. I-" Then, as suddenly as though he had received the prick of a spur, he hurried back to his family, holding out the magazine.