THE SACRED FOUNT
"Yes—it has positively given him a mind and a tongue. That's what has come over him."
"Then," I said, "it's a most extraordinary case—such as one really has never met."
"Oh, but," she objected, "it happens."
"Ah, so very seldom! Yes—I've positively never met it. Are you very sure," I insisted, "that Lady John is the influence?"
"I don't mean to say, of course," she replied, "that he looks fluttered if you mention her, that he doesn't in fact look as blank as a pickpocket. But that proves nothing—or rather, as they're known to be always together, and she from morning till night as pointed as a hat-pin, it proves just what one sees. One simply takes it in."
I turned the picture round. "They're scarcely together when she's together with Brissenden."
"Ah, that's only once in a way. It's a thing that from time to time such people—don't you know?—make a particular point of: they cultivate, to cover their game, the appearance of other little friendships. It puts outsiders off the scent, and the real thing meanwhile goes on. Besides, you yourself acknowledge the effect. If she hasn't made him clever, what has she made him? She has given him, steadily, more and more intellect."
"Well, you may be right," I laughed, "though you speak as if it were cod-liver oil. Does she administer it, as a daily dose, by the spoonful? or
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