"Kind? How kind?"
"Well—friendly. More friendly than she is to others. Last night she let me sit out three waltzes with her, and she only sat out one with your brother."
"Is it?" asks the professor, in a dull, monotonous sort of way. "Is it—I am not much in your or her world, you know—is it a very marked thing for a girl to sit out three waltzes with one man?"
"Oh, no. Nothing very special. I have known girls do it often, but she is not like other girls, is she?"
The professor waves this question aside.
"Keep to the point," says he.
"Well, she is the point, isn't she? And look here, Curzon, why aren't you of our world? It is your own fault surely; when one sees your sister, your brother, and—and this," with a slight glance round the dull little apartment, "one cannot help wondering why you——"
"Let that go by," says the professor. "I have explained it before. I deliberately chose my own way in life, and I want nothing more than I have. You think, then, that last night Miss Wynter gave you—encouragement?"
"Oh! hardly that. And yet—she certainly seemed to like—that is not to dislike my being with her; and once—well,"—confusedly—"that was nothing."
"It must have been something."