“Good-morning, Professor,” said that young man. “I’m afraid I’ve stumbled by a sheer accident on your hunting-ground. I am staying with an old schoolfellow thirty miles away, and rode in this direction. I had no idea you were here.”
The Professor was a sight to behold. Red as an enraged turkey-cock, streaming with perspiration—for it was a hot afternoon—almost speechless with indignation, he at last blurted into tongue: “So, sir, this is what you have been doing—stealing a march upon me; following me up secretly; defrauding me of the prizes of my own labour and research. I could not have believed it of any member of the Society. The thing is more than unhandsome. It is monstrous! an utterly monstrous proceeding!”
Horace attempted to explain matters again. It was useless; he might as well have argued with a buffalo bull at that moment.
“Mr Maybold,” retorted the Professor, “the coincidence of your staying in the very locality in which my discovery was made, coupled with the fact that you endeavoured, at the last meeting of the Entomological Society, to extract from me the habitat of this new species, is quite too impossible. I have nothing more to say, for the present.” And the irate old gentleman passed on.
Horace felt excessively vexed. Yet he had done no wrong. Perhaps when the old gentleman had come to his senses he would listen to reason.
Jacobus now led the way to the farmhouse. It lay only a mile away, and they presently rode up towards the stoep. Two ladies were sitting under the shade of the ample thatched veranda—one was painting, the other reading. Horace could scarcely believe his eyes as he approached. These were his two fellow-passengers of the Norham Castle, Mrs Stacer and Rose Vanning, the latter looking, if possible, more charming than ever. The ladies recognised him in their turn, and rose with a little flutter. Horace jumped from his horse and shook hands with some warmth.
“Who on earth,” he said, “could have expected to meet you in these wilds? I am astonished—and delighted,” he added, with a glance at Rose.
Explanations ensued. It seemed that the ladies were the sister and step-daughter of the Professor, who was a widower. They had been engaged by him in a mild conspiracy not to reveal his whereabouts, so fearful was he of his precious butterfly’s habitat being made known to the world; and so, all through the voyage, no mention had been made even of his name. It was his particular whim and request, and here was the mystery at an end. The Professor had moved from the farmhouse in which he had lodged the year before, and had secured quarters in Mr Gunton’s roomy, comfortable ranch, where the ladies had joined him.
Horace, who had inwardly chafed at this unexpected turn, had now to explain his awkward rencontre with the Professor. To his great relief, Mrs Stacer and Rose took it much more philosophically than he could have hoped; indeed, they seemed rather amused than otherwise.
“But,” said Horace with a rueful face, “the Professor’s in a frantic rage with me. You don’t quite realise that he absolutely discredits my story, and believes I have been playing the spy all along. And upon the top of all this I have a letter to Mr Gunton, and must sleep here somehow for the night. There’s no other accommodation within twenty miles. Why, when the Professor comes back and finds me here, he’ll go out of his mind!”