"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.
"True!" says she.

She gives him one swift brilliant glance, and then suddenly grows restless.

"How _warm_ it is!" she says fretfully.

"I wish----" What she was going to say, will never now be known.

The approach of a tall, gaunt figure through the hanging oriental curtains at the end of the conservatory checks her speech.