Dr. Lister sat at first quietly, one knee thrown over the other, his foot swinging. After a while his guest looked up at him, in his face intense annoyance amounting almost to disgust. He tried to cover this revelation of his inner feeling, but was too late.
"Don't mind saying just what you think," said Dr. Lister. "Nothing in the world would be so unfortunate as for us to set too high a value upon Basil's writings."
But it was not Basil's writings which annoyed.
"I wish you would stop swinging your foot!"
Dr. Lister looked astonished, then he laughed. He went upstairs to glance in upon a sleeping Mary Alcestis. All compunctions had now departed from his breast. When he came back to the study, Dr. Scott asked a question.
"How old was he?"
"About twenty-five."
"Incredible!"
He bent again over Basil Everman's writing. Dr. Lister opened a notebook and read for a few minutes and laid it down, surfeited with Basil Everman. He crossed the hall and walked up and down the long parlor. When he went back within reach of Dr. Scott's whisper, he heard, "It seems to me you've come perilously near committing a sort of murder. What was his family about?"
"They thought him a little wild. That is between you and me, Scott."