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cruelty for its own
     sake! Oh, it is difficult. Man is an animal very delicately balanced. He has one prime
     necessity - to survive. To advance too quickly is as fatal as to lag behind. He must
     survive! He must, perhaps, retain some of the old savagery, but he must not - no,
     definitely he must not - deify it!”
    There was a pause. Then Sarah said: “You think old Mrs. Boynton is a kind of Sadist?”
    “I am almost sure of it. I think she rejoices in the infliction of pain - mental pain,
     mind you, not physical. That is very much rarer and very much more difficult to deal with.
     She likes to have control of other human beings and she likes to make them suffer.”
    “It's pretty beastly,” said Sarah.
    Gerard told her of his conversation with Jefferson Cope.
    “He doesn't realize what is going on?” she said thoughtfully.
    “How should he? He is not a psychologist.”
    “True. He hasn't got our disgusting minds!”
    “Exactly. He has a nice, upright, sentimental, normal American mind. He believes in good
     rather than evil. He sees that the atmosphere of the Boynton family is all wrong, but he
     credits Mrs. Boynton with misguided devotion rather than active maleficence.”
    “That must amuse her,” said Sarah.
    “I should imagine it does!”
    Sarah said impatiently: “But why don't they break away? They could.”
    Gerard shook his head. “No, there you are wrong. They cannot. Have you ever seen the old
     experiment with a cock? You chalk a line on the floor and put the cock's beak to it. The
     cock believes he is tied there. He cannot raise his head. So with these unfortunates. She
     has worked on them, remember, since they were children. And her dominance has been mental.
     She has hypnotized them to believe that they cannot disobey her. Oh, I know most people
     would say that was nonsense - but you and I know better. She has made them believe that
     utter dependence on her is inevitable. They have been in prison so long that if the prison
     door stood open they would no longer notice! One of them, at least, no longer even wants
     to be free! And they would all be afraid of freedom.”
    Sarah asked practically: “What will happen when she dies?”
    Gerard shrugged his shoulders. “It depends on how soon that happens. If it happened, well,
     I think it might not be too late. The boy and the girl are still young - impressionable.
     They would become, I believe, normal human beings. With Lennox, possibly, it has gone too
     far. He looks to me like a man who has parted company with hope - he lives and endures
     like a brute beast.”
    Sarah said impatiently: “His wife ought to have done something! She ought to have yanked
     him out of it.”
    “I wonder. She may have tried - and failed.”
    “Do you think she's under the spell too?”
    Gerard shook his head. “No. I don't think the old lady has any power over her, and for
     that reason she hates her with a bitter hatred. Watch her eyes.”
    Sarah frowned. “I can't make her out - the young one, I mean. Does she know what is going
     on?”
    “I think she must have a pretty shrewd idea.”
    “Hm,” said Sarah. “That old woman ought to be murdered! Arsenic in her early morning tea
     would be my prescription.”
    Then she said abruptly: “What about the youngest girl - the red-haired one with the rather
     fascinating vacant smile?”
    Gerard frowned. “I don't know. There is something queer there. Ginevra Boynton is the old
     woman's own daughter, of course.”
    “Yes. I suppose that would be different - or wouldn't it?”
    Gerard said slowly: “I do not believe that when once the mania for power (and the lust for
     cruelty) has taken possession of a human being that it can spare anybody - not even its
     nearest and dearest.”
    He was silent for a moment then he said: “Are you a Christian, Mademoiselle?”
    Sarah said slowly: “I don't know. I used to think that I wasn't anything. But now - I'm
     not sure. I feel