"Why not include the father in the list of the most interesting persons?"
I questioned.

"Because I have met many men like him, but no one quite like his
daughter, or Mrs.--what is her name?"

"Mrs. Falchion."

"Or Mrs. Falchion or the bookmaker."

"What is there so uncommon about Miss Treherne? She had not struck me as
being remarkable."

"No? Well, of course, she is not striking after the fashion of Mrs.
Falchion. But watch her, study her, and you will find her to be the
perfection of a type--the finest expression of a decorous convention, a
perfect product of social conservatism; unaffected, cheerful, sensitive,
composed, very talented, altogether companionable."

"Excuse me," I said, laughing, though I was impressed; "that sounds as if
you had been writing about her, and applying to her the novelist's system
of analysis, which makes an imperfect individual a perfect type. Now,
frankly, are you speaking of Miss Treherne, or of some one of whom she is
the outline, as it were?"

Clovelly turned and looked at me steadily. "When you consider a
patient," he said, "do you arrange a diagnosis of a type or of a person?
--And, by the way, 'type' is a priggish word."