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- oh, I feel that if I could sweep all this away - ” she made a violent
     gesture, “ - all the buildings and the sects and the fierce squabbling churches - that -
     that I might see Christ's quiet figure riding into Jerusalem on a donkey - and believe in
     him.”
    Dr. Gerard said gravely: “I believe at least in one of the chief tenets of the Christian
     faith - contentment with a lowly place. I am a doctor and I know that ambition - the
     desire to succeed - to have power - leads to most ills of the human soul. If the desire is
     realized it leads to arrogance, violence and final satiety; and if it is denied - ah! If
     it is denied let all the asylums for the insane rise up and give their testimony! They are
     filled with human beings who were unable to face being mediocre, insignificant,
     ineffective and who therefore created for themselves ways of escape from reality so to be
     shut off from life itself forever.”
    Sarah said abruptly: “It's a pity the old Boynton woman isn't in an asylum.”
    Gerard shook his head. “No - her place is not there among the failures. It is worse than
     that. She has succeeded, you see! She has accomplished her dream.”
    Sarah shuddered.
    She cried passionately: “Such things ought not to be!”

Appointment with Death
    7
    Sarah wondered very much whether Carol Boynton would keep her appointment that night. On
     the whole, she rather doubted it. She was afraid that Carol would have a sharp reaction
     after her semi-confidences of the morning.
    Nevertheless, she made her preparations, slipping on a blue satin dressing gown and
     getting out her little spirit lamp and boiling up water. She was just on the point of
     giving Carol up (it was after one o'clock) and going to bed, when there was a tap on her
     door. She opened it and drew quickly back to let Carol come in.
    The latter said breathlessly: “I was afraid you might have gone to bed...”
    Sarah's manner was carefully matter-of-fact. “Oh, no. I was waiting for you. Have some
     tea, will you? It's real Lapsang Souchong.”
    She brought over a cup. Carol had been nervous and uncertain of herself. Now she accepted
     the cup and a biscuit and her manner became calmer.
    “This is rather fun,” said Sarah, smiling.
    Carol looked a little startled.
    “Yes,” she said doubtfully. “Yes, I suppose it is.”
    “Rather like the midnight feasts we used to have at school,” went on Sarah. “I suppose you
     didn't go away to school?”
    Carol shook her head. “We never left home. We had a governess - different governesses.
     They never stayed long.”
    “Did you never go away at all?”
    “We've lived always in the same house. This coming abroad is the first time I've ever been
     away.”
    Sarah said casually: “It must have been a great adventure.”
    “Oh, it was. It - it's all been like a dream.”
    “What made your - your stepmother decide to come abroad?”
    At the mention of Mrs. Boynton's name, Carol had flinched. Sarah said quickly: “You know,
     I'm by way of being a doctor. I've just taken my M.B.. Your mother - or stepmother rather
     - is very interesting to me - as a case, you know. I should say she was quite definitely a
     pathological case.”
    Carol stared. It was clearly a very unexpected point of view to her. Sarah had spoken as
     she had with deliberate intent. She realized that to her family Mrs. Boynton loomed as a
     kind of powerful obscene idol. It was Sarah's object to rob her of her more terrifying
     aspect.
    “Yes,” she said. “There's a kind of disease of - of grandeur - that gets hold of people.
     They get very autocratic and insist on everything being done exactly as they say and are
     altogether very difficult to deal with.”
    Carol put down her cup. “Oh,” she cried, “I'm so glad to be talking to you. You know, I
     believe Ray and I have been getting quite - well, quite queer. We'd got terribly worked up
     about things.”
    “Talking with an outsider