“I can’t very well afford to think of that possibility,” said Tregarvon grimly.
“No, I suppose you can’t. Yet if the genially cynical attitude of the native bystander counts for anything——”
“The loafers over at Tait’s, you mean? They’d scoff at anything that smelled of good, honest work.”
“I wasn’t thinking of them particularly, though they help swell the grand total. But the entire countryside seems to think that you are barking up an empty tree. President Caswell says you are wasting time and money; and that mild-eyed, clerical-looking professor of sciences, Hartridge, fairly chortled when I told him what we were doing. You may remember that he strolled over from Highmount the day we started the drill.”
“What did he say?” Tregarvon demanded.
“He very pointedly said nothing. But there was a look in his skim-milk eyes that recalled the villain in a play.”
Tregarvon was laughing appreciatively. “You have an eye for the dramatic possibilities, always, haven’t you, Poictiers? Why should Mr. William Wilberforce Hartridge have it in for me?”
“I can only make a crude guess. Even a mild-eyed professor of sciences may turn, like the trodden worm. You umpire him out of the game pretty ruthlessly when we spend an evening at Highmount.”
“With Miss Richardia? Pshaw! you don’t suppose that dried-up old stick of a pedagogue—why, it would be Beauty and the Beast!”
Carfax’s smile was truly angelic, but it betrayed a wisdom far beyond his years.