I have been watching her. I have not been
favoured with very much of her attention, but that fact has enabled
me to see her in profile. Miss Seyffert is a fairly crude mixture of
frankness, insincerity and self-explanatory egotism, and I have been
able to disregard a considerable amount of the conversation she has
addressed to me. Now I guess this Miss Grammont has had no mother since
she was quite little."
"Your guesses, doctor, are apt to be pretty good," said Sir Richmond.
"You know that?"
"She has told me as much."
"H'm. Well--She impressed me as having the air of a girl who has had
to solve many problems for which the normal mother provides ready made
solutions. That is how I inferred that there was no mother. I don't
think there has been any stepmother, either friendly or hostile?
There hasn't been. I thought not. She has had various governesses and
companions, ladies of birth and education, engaged to look after her
and she has done exactly what she liked with them. Her manner with Miss
Seyffert, an excellent manner for Miss Seyffert, by the bye, isn't the
sort of manner anyone acquires in a day. Or for one person only. She is
a very sure and commanding young woman."
Sir Richmond nodded.
"I suppose her father adores and neglects her, and whenever she has
wanted a companion or governess butchered, the thing has been done.
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