"Why not? I often speak to people traveling.
I'm interested in people - in what they do and think and feel."
"You put them under the microscope, that is to say!"
"I suppose you might call it that," the girl admitted.
"And what were your impressions in this case?"
"Well" - she hesitated - "it was rather odd...
To begin with, the boy flushed right up to the roots of his hair."
"Is that so remarkable?" asked Gerard dryly.
Sarah laughed.
"You mean that he thought I was a shameless hussy making advances to him?
Oh, no, I don't think he thought that.
Men can always tell, can't they?" She gave him a frank, questioning glance.
Dr. Gerard nodded his head.
"I got the impression," said Sarah, speaking slowly and frowning a little, "that he was - how shall I put it? - both excited and appalled.
Excited out of all proportion - and quite absurdly apprehensive at the same time. Now that's odd, isn't it, because I've always found Americans unusually self-possessed.
An American boy of twenty, say, has infinitely more knowledge of the world and far more savoir-faire than an English boy of the same age.
And this boy must be over twenty."
"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.
The grotesque Buddha-like figure held out a fat hand for it, but as she took it her eyes, Dr. Gerard noticed, were on the boy's face.
She gave a grunt, certainly no audible thanks. The position of her head shifted very slightly. The doctor saw that she was now looking hard at Sarah.
Her face was quite impassive, it had no expression in it. Impossible to tell what was passing in the woman's mind.
Sarah looked at her watch and uttered an exclamation.
"It's much later than I thought." She got up. "Thank you so much. Dr. Gerard, for standing me coffee.
I must write some letters now."