Mrs. Thorne asked the question softly of Geoffrey.
‘I? Certainly not, madam. After a few weeks’ holiday I am going back to my medical work in Cambridge.’
‘Geoffrey won his academic honours long ago,’ said Gaston. ‘In my cousin Geff you behold that melancholy specimen, Mrs. Thorne, a man of genius resolutely bent on not getting on in the world. After passing eighth in the Classical Tripos of his year——’
‘And finding that a Classical Tripos does not mean bread and cheese,’ put in Geff with sturdy independence.
‘My cousin went back to school, set up a skeleton, and began smelling evil smells out of bottles, like a good little boy of sixteen. In another year and a half he hopes to get some unpaid work in the East End of London. The worse,’ added Gaston, with the hearty appreciation of Geoffrey, which was the finest thing in his own character—‘the worse for all the wretched men and women in Cambridge whose lives are bettered by my cousin Geff’s labours among them.’
‘Re—ally? Dear, dear, it is all too noble! A veritable life-poem in prose! My husband is a man of science, too. Only in his days, you know, doctors believed in their own horrible medicines. Doctor Thorne will be charmed to make Mr. Geoffrey Arbuthnot’s acquaintance. You are not working quite too dreadfully hard here in Guernsey, I hope?’
Geoffrey detested italics, even though he might tolerate a woman who habitually employed them. Judge how he was affected by the italicised enthusiasm, applied to himself, of Linda Thorne!
‘My work in Guernsey will take the shape of pupils, if I am lucky enough to get any. My terms are five shillings an hour, madam. My tuition comprises Greek, Latin, arithmetic, a moderate quantity of algebra, and, if required,’ said Geff, without the ghost of a smile, ‘the use of the globes. Perhaps you could recommend me?’
‘Oh, to be sure; I quite understand.’ Linda’s highly-wrought tones went through a diminuendo of interest, well bred but rapid, at this announcement of poverty. ‘Classics; the use of the globes; algebra; pupils.’
‘Of whom we hope we have caught one,’ cried Gaston, watching her face, gauging the extent of her sympathy for life-poems in prose. ‘You think, do you not, Geff, that you have secured Miss Marjorie Bartrand of Tintajeux?’