g man with a light-brown brush mustache
and a pleasant smile. He wore thick glasses but he didn't look at all
scholarly; instead, he looked rather like Alec Guinness made up for a
role as a Naval lieutenant. He rose as Malone entered, and stretched a
hand across the desk. "Glad to see you, Sir Kenneth," he said. "Very
glad."

Malone shook hands and raised his eyebrows. "_Sir_ Kenneth?" he said.

Dr. Marshall shrugged slightly. "She prefers it," he said. "And since
there's no telling whose mind she might look into--" He smiled. "After
all," he finished, "why not?"

"Tell me, doctor," Malone said. "Don't you ever get uneasy about the
fact that Her Majesty can look into your mind? I mean, it has
disturbed some people."

"Not at all," Marshall said. "Not in the least. After all, Sir
Kenneth, it's all a matter of adjustment. Simple adjustment and no
more." He paused, then added: "Like sex."

"Sex?" Malone said in a voice he hoped was calm.

"Cultural mores," Marshall said. "That sort of thing. Nothing,
really." He sat down. "Make yourself comfortable," he told Malone. "As
a matter of fact, the delusion Her Majesty suffers from has its
compensations for the psychiatrist. Where else could I be appointed
Royal Psychiatrist, Advisor to the Crown, and Earl Marshal?"

Malone looked around, found a comfortable chair and dropped into it.
"I suppose so," he said. "It must be sort of fun, in a way."

"Oh, it is," Marshall said. "Of course, it can get to be specifically
troublesome; all cases can. I remember a girl who'd managed to get
herself married to the wrong man--she was trying to escape her mother,
or some such thing. And she'd moved into this apartment where her
next-door neighbor, a nice woman really, had rather strange sexual
tendencies. Well, what with those problems, and the husband himself--a
rather ill-tempered brute, but a nice fellow basically--and her
eventually meeting Mr. Right, which was inevitable--"

"I'm sure it was very troublesome," Malone put in.

"Extremely," Marshall said. "Worked out in the end, though. Ah ...
most of them do seem to, when we're lucky. When things break right."

"And when they don't?" Malone said.

Marshall shook his head slowly and rubbed at his forehead with two
fingers. "We do what we can," he said. "It's an infant science. I
remember one rather unhappy case--started at a summer theatre, but the
complications didn't stop there. As I recall, there were something
like seven