"It is a privilege," said the professor; "but it is more of one to Philip than to you—even more of one than he knows. He needs what such a woman might give him."
"Does he?" said Arbuthnot. "Might I ask what that is?"
And he was angry with himself because he did not say it with more ease and less of a sense of unreasonable irritation. The professor seemed to forget his cigar, he held it in the hand which rested on his chair-arm, and neglected it while he gave himself up to thought.
"He has changed very much during the past year," he said. "In the few last months I have noticed it specially. I miss something from his manner, and he looks fagged and worn. It has struck me that he rather needs an interest, and feels his loneliness without being conscious that he does so. After all, it is only natural. A man who leads an isolated life inevitably reaches a period when his isolation wearies him, and he broods over it a little."
"And you think," said Arbuthnot, "that Mrs. Sylvestre might supply the interest?"
"Don't you think so yourself?" suggested the professor, mildly.
"Oh," said Laurence, "I think the man would be hard to please who did not find she could supply him with anything and everything."
And he laughed and made a few rings of smoke, watching them float upward toward the ceiling.
"He would have a great deal to bring her," said the professor, speaking for the moment rather as if to himself than to any audience. "And she would have a great deal in return for what she could bestow. He has always been what he is to-day, and only such a man is worthy of her. No man who has trifled with himself and his past could offer what is due to her."
"That is true," said Laurence.