"No wonder," Mr. Sabin said, "that people think him mad."
"He is mad," she said. "There is no possible doubt about that; you couldn't live with him a day and doubt it."
"Hereditary, no doubt," Mr. Sabin suggested quietly.
Blanche shrugged her shoulders and leaned back yawning.
"Anyhow," she said, "I've had enough of them all. It has been very tiresome work and I am sick of it. Give me some money. I want a spree. I am going to have a month's holiday."
Mr. Sabin sat down at his desk and drew out a cheque-book.
"There will be no difficulty about the money," he said, "but I cannot spare you for a month. Long before that I must have the rest of this madman's figures."
"Haven't I told you," she said, "that there is not the slightest chance of their taking me back? You might as well believe me. They wouldn't have me, and I wouldn't go."
"I do not expect anything of the sort," Mr. Sabin said. "There are other directions, though, in which I shall require your aid. I shall have to go to Deringham myself, and as I know nothing whatever about the place you will be useful to me there. I believe that your home is somewhere near there."
"There is no reason, I suppose," Mr. Sabin continued, "why a portion of the vacation you were speaking of should not be spent there?"
"None!" the girl replied, "except that it would be deadly dull, and no holiday at all. I should want paying for it."
Mr. Sabin looked down at the cheque-book which lay open before him.
"I was intending," he said, "to offer you a cheque for fifty pounds. I will make it one hundred, and you will rejoin your family circle at Fakenham, I believe, in one week from to-day."
"The money's all right," she said; "but you ought to see my family circle! They are all cracked on farming, from the poor old dad who loses all his spare cash at it, down to little Letty my youngest sister, who can tell you everything about the last turnip crop. Do ride over and see us! You will find it so amusing!"
"I shall be charmed," Mr. Sabin said suavely, as he commenced filling in the body of the cheque. "Are all your sisters, may I ask, as delightful as you?"
"Look here," she said, "none of that! Of course you wouldn't come, but in any case I won't have you. The girls are--well, not like me, I'm glad to say. I won't have the responsibility of introducing a Mephistocles into the domestic circle."