He glanced at her quickly, and then let his gaze continue to rest on her beautiful, sibylline countenance.
“Not you,” he said, “you are too—well, I suppose the word I must use is temperamental, but it’s a word I hate.”
“Why?” asked the Professor, “what do you mean by temperamental?”
“That’s the trouble,” smiled Wise. “It doesn’t mean anything. Strictly speaking, every one has temperament of one sort or another, but it has come to mean an emotional temperament,——”
“What do you mean by emotional?” interrupted Hardwick.
“There you go again!” and Wise looked amused. “Emotions are of all sorts, but emotional has come to be used only in reference to demonstrations of the affections.”
“You’re a scholar!” cried the Professor. “Rarely do I meet a man with such a fine sense of terminology!”
“Glad you’re pleased. But, Professor, neither do I choose you as historian of the affairs of Black Aspens. Let me see,” his eyes roved from one to another, “it seems to me I’ll get the most straightforward, uncoloured statement from a clerical mind. I think Mr. Tracy can tell me, in the way I want to hear it, a concise story of the mysteries and tragedies you have been through up here.”
Mr. Tracy looked at the detective gravely.
“I am quite willing to do what I can,” he said, “and I will tell the happenings as I know them. For occasions when I was not present, or where my memory fails, the others will, I trust, be allowed to help me out.”