Hardinge, believing in her tone, her smile, falls into the trap.
Mindful of that night when the professor in despair at her untimely descent upon him, had said many things unmeant, he answers her.
"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.
"True!" says she.