But the adventures therein related were not to his taste. He was in no humour for the accumulation of unexplained incident; what he wanted at that particular time was clarity—a breeze which would blow through the castle of intrigue and drive out the obscuring vapours.
“This fellow,” remarked he, turning the leaves of one of the books, “is too much like myself. Here he starts out under a cloud; and as he goes along, instead of getting rid of it, he adds to it. At page one hundred he has a collection of clouds the like of which I never saw in a book before. Then they proceed to break, and he has a fine little storm on his hands, with thunder and lightning and wind. If it only cleared up then, all right. But it doesn’t. The clouds still stick around; the fellow never gets a chance to do anything, for he can’t see far enough ahead.”
He threw the book upon the table and yawned. Then he proceeded to dress for dinner.
Once more he was surprised to find that Miss Hohenlo would dine with them.
“Really,” she declared, girlishly, “I seem to be in splendid spirits. I haven’t been well enough to come down to dinner for ever so long before last night. I don’t understand it. There must be something in the air.”
“It is very possible,” spoke Miss Knowles, smilingly. “I think I have detected it myself.”
While the two women talked, Campe engaged his guest in conversation.
“Kretz tells me that there was a stranger about the place to-day,” said he, with an assumption of carelessness, but with a troubled look in his eyes.
Scanlon nodded easily.
“A sick fellow,” said he. “From the inn over yonder. Something of a botanist, I think. He said he was looking for specimens.”