Elizabeth stood with her hands behind her back, leaning slightly against the writing-table. The professor, with his broad-brimmed hat clinched in his fingers, walked restlessly up and down the little room. The discussion had not been altogether a pleasant one. Elizabeth was composed but serious, her father nervous and excited.
“You are mad, Elizabeth!” he declared. “Is it that you do not understand, or will not? I tell you that we must go.”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“Where would you drag me to?” she asked. “We certainly can't go back to New York.”
He turned fiercely upon her.
“Whose fault is it that we can't?” he demanded. “If it weren't for you and your confounded schemes, I could be walking down Broadway next week. God's own city it is, too!” he muttered. “I wish we'd never seen those two young men.”
“It was a pity, perhaps,” she admitted, “yet we had to do something. We were absolutely stonybroke, as they say over here.”
“Anyway, we've got to get out of this,” the professor declared.
“My dear father,” she replied, “I will agree that if a new city or a new world could arise from the bottom of the sea, where Professor Franklin was unknown, and his beautiful daughter Elizabeth had neyer been heard of, it might perhaps be advisable for us to go there. As it is--”
“There is Rome,” he exclaimed, “or some of the smaller places! We have money for a time. We could get another draft, perhaps, from Wenham.”