"To tell you the truth, that is it," interrupts Hardinge, simply. "I don't wonder at your indignation, but the fact is, I love her so much, that I fear to put it to the touch myself. You will help me, won't you? You see, you stand in the place of her father, Curzon. If you were her father, I should be saying to you just what I am saying now."
"True," says the professor. His head is lowered. "There, go," says he, "I must think this over."
"But I may depend upon you"—anxiously—"you will do what you can for me?"
"I shall do what I can for her."
CHAPTER XIV.
"Now, by two-headed Janus,
Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time."
Hardinge is hardly gone, before another—a far heavier—step sounds in the passage outside the professor's door. It is followed by a knock, almost insolent in its loudness and sharpness.
"What a hole you do live in," says Sir Hastings, stepping into the room, and picking his way through the books and furniture as if afraid of being tainted by them. "Bless me! what strange beings you scientists are. Rags and bones your surroundings, instead of good flesh and blood. Well, Thaddeus—hardly expected to see me here, eh?"
"You want me?" says the professor. "Don't sit down there—those notes are loose; sit here."
"Faith, you've guessed it, my dear fellow, I do want you, and most confoundedly badly this time. Your ward, now, Miss Wynter! Deuced pretty little girl, isn't she, and good form too? Wonderfully bred—considering."