“I had better be at my room and at work,” he thought.
At that moment he became aware of a change in the expression of the Professor’s daughter. Her languid eye had awaked. She was regarding him with puzzled but evident attention. He threw off his momentary depression with ready social ease, and gayly said:—
“You look as if you were trying to classify a subject, Miss Carruth; as if you wanted to put something in its place and couldn’t do it.”
“I am,” she admitted. “I do.”
“And you succeed?”
“No.” She shook her head again. “I do not find the label. I give it up.” She laughed merrily, and Bayard joined in the laugh. But to himself he said:—
“She does me the honor to investigate me. Plainly I am not the one C. Clearly I am not the other B. Then what? She troubles herself to wonder.”
Then he remembered how many generations of theological students had been the subject of the young lady’s gracious and indifferent observation. She was, perhaps, twenty-five years old, and they had filed through that dining-room alphabetically—the A’s, the B’s, the C’s, the X’s and the Z’s—since she came, in short dresses, to Cesarea, when her father gave up his New York parish for the Chair of Theology. It occurred to Bayard that she might have ceased to find either the genus or the species theologus of thrilling personal interest, by this time.
Then the Professor mentioned to the other B a certain feature of the famous Presbyterian trial for heresy, at that time wrenching the religious world. Bayard turned to listen, and the discussion which followed soon absorbed him.
The face of the Professor of Theology grew grave as he approached the topic of his favorite heresy. Stern lines cut themselves about his fine mouth. His gentle eyes darkened. He felt keenly the responsibility of the influence that he bore over his students, even in hours of what he called social relaxation, and the necessity of defending the truth was vividly present to his trained conscience. Bayard watched his host with troubled admiration. It was with a start that he heard a woman’s voice sweetly breaking in upon the conversation. She was speaking to the guest of the flannel shirt.