"Hardly that. But----"

"Go on."

"There was a little word or two, you know," laughing.

"A hint?" laughing too, but how strangely! "Yes? And----?"

"Oh! a _mere_ hint! The professor is too loyal to go beyond that. I
suppose you know you have the best man in all the world for your
guardian? But it was a little unkind of your people, was it not, to
give you into the keeping of a confirmed bookworm--a savant--with
scarcely a thought beyond his studies?"

"He could study me!" says she. "I should be a fresh specimen."

"A _rara avis_, indeed! but not such as the professor's soul covets.
No, believe me, you are as dust before the wind in his learned eye."

"You think then--that I--am a trouble to him?"

"It is inconceivable," says he, with a shrug of apology, "but he has
no room in his daily thoughts, I verily believe, for anything beyond
his beloved books, and notes, and discoveries."

"Yet _I_ am a discovery," persists she, looking at him with anxious
eyes, and leaning forward, whilst her fan falls idly on her knees.

"Ah! But so unpardonably _recent!"_ returns he with a smile.