"Sir Hastings!" Mr. Hardinge leans back in his chair and gives way to thought. This quiet, hard-working student—this man whom he had counted as a nobody—the brother of that disreputable Hastings Curzon! "As good as got the baronetcy," says he still thinking. "At the rate Sir Hastings is going he can't possibly last for another twelvemonth, and here is this fellow living in these dismal lodgings with twenty thousand a year before his eyes. A lucky thing for him that the estates are so strictly entailed. Good heavens! to think of a man with all that almost in his grasp being happy in a coat that must have been built in the Ark, and caring for nothing on earth but the intestines of frogs and such-like abominations."
"You seem surprised again," says the professor, somewhat satirically.
"I confess it," says Hardinge.
"I can't see why you should be."
"I do," says Hardinge drily. "That you," slowly, "you should be Sir Hastings' brother! Why——"
"No more!" interrupts the professor sharply. He lifts his hand. "Not another word. I know what you are going to say. It is one of my great troubles, that I always know what people are going to say when they mention him. Let him alone, Hardinge."
"Oh! I'll let him alone," says Hardinge, with a gesture of disgust. There is a pause.
"You know my sister, then?" says the professor presently.
"Yes. She is very charming. How is it I have never seen you there?"
"At her house?"