Burton withdrew his eyes from the French window through which Edith had vanished.
"I am quite at your service," he answered quietly. "Please let me hear exactly what it is that you have to say."
CHAPTER XVII
BURTON DECLINES
The professor cleared his throat.
"In the first place, Mr. Burton," he said, "I feel that I owe you an apology. I have taken a great liberty. Mr. Bomford here is one of my oldest and most intimate friends. I have spoken to him of the manuscript you brought me to translate. I have told him your story."
Mr. Bomford scratched his side whiskers and nodded patronizingly.
"It is a very remarkable story," he declared, "a very remarkable story indeed. I can assure you, Mr.—Mr. Burton, that I never listened to anything so amazing. If any one else except my old friend here had told me of it, I should have laughed. I should have dismissed the whole thing at once as incredible and preposterous. Even now, I must admit that I find it almost impossible to accept the story in its entirety."
Burton looked him coldly in the eyes. Mr. Bomford did not please him.
"The story is perfectly true," he said. "There is not the slightest necessity for you to believe it—in fact, so far as I am concerned, it does not matter in the least whether you do or not."