Out of the professor's mutterings we caught a random sentence.
"Found, found again," we heard him say. "Hers beyond peradventure of a doubt. I am not mistaken."
Billings rose, and his beckoning finger summoned me to a corner of the room.
"This is going to cost you a pot of money, Dicky," he said with a serious air, "to say nothing of the scandal. My advice is, try buying him off—best thing in the long run. I'll feel him for you."
Nodding solemnly to me he cleared his voice. "H'm! I say, Professor."
The professor, with his eye glued to the lens and the lens to the silk, turned slowly about.
"H'm!" began Billings. "The—h'm—articles you have there—you recognize where they are from—eh?"
"Of course," he snapped, without looking up.
"H'm! And whose did I understand you to say—I—er—did not catch her name."
His glance uplifted and scoured us sourly.