"Is he a servant out of the house?"
"Not exactly, he is in the employ of a--Ah, Professor Fernow!" exclaimed Atkins suddenly interrupting himself, "I am delighted to see you!"
The professor, who was just returning from the university, and had, as usual, taken the path through the garden, returned the salutation and drew nearer.
"How do you do, Professor Fernow?" asked Atkins patronizingly. "You look ill; that comes from your learning! Will you permit me to introduce you to a countryman of mine? Mr. Alison, Mr. Fernow, professor in the university, and inmate of Doctor Stephen's house."
Countryman! Inmate of the doctor's house! These were two very indifferent, commonplace designations, upon which Atkins had not laid the slightest emphasis, and still they appeared to strike both young men in the same way. Alison's dark glance, with a suddenly awakened suspicion, fixed itself sharply and searchingly upon the professor's face, and Fernow's blue eyes flamed up in painful excitement, as he returned the glance with unwonted spirit. It was as if both in this, the first moment of their meeting, had a presentiment of hostile relations hereafter. Each bowed coldly and haughtily, as if an invisible barrier already lay between them.
[CHAPTER VI.]
A Strange Presentiment.
Atkins, with his wonted vivacity, sought to introduce a conversation, but he did not succeed. For all that was said to him, Alison had a cold, polite assent; and the professor, even more reticent than usual, seized the first opportunity to take refuge in the house. After a few minutes, in his timid, courteous way, he took leave of the elderly American, bowed silently and distantly to his young companion, and left the two alone.
"Who is this Fernow?" asked Alison when the Professor was out of hearing.
"I have already told you. Professor in the university here, a shining light of science, a precious example of a German scholar, who with his investigations, and thousand-year-old rubbish and hieroglyphics, devotes himself to the good of humanity, and meantime withers up into a mummy. A very well conducted, blameless specimen besides, who made himself supremely comic in the role of knight and protector which he assumed towards Miss Jane on the day of our arrival."