“It is such a task for me to dress,” she told him. “That’s why I so seldom come down of an evening. But the coming of your friend yesterday, and what Frederic has been telling me about him is quite exciting.”
Bat raised his brows inquiringly.
“Telling you about him?” said he.
“You know he mentioned his interest in old Count Hohenlo,” said Campe. “My aunt is pleased with that.”
“I see,” said Bat, and felt more at ease. Happening to turn his eyes in the midst of his complacency, he found those of Miss Knowles fixed upon him observantly.
“Your friend, Mr. Ashton-Kirk, must be a man of much learning,” said she.
“He has so many books that it’d give you a headache just to look at them,” said Bat. “As a child, they fed him learning with a spoon. He knows more inside stuff about people whom ordinary people never heard of than you’d think could be found out in half-a-dozen lifetimes.”
“How very interesting,” said Miss Knowles.
“Only to-day he was overhauling a group of musty old fellows who, so it would seem, put in their lives poking around among skulls.”
“Oh!” Miss Knowles said this, and her hands went up in a pretty gesture, apparently of dismay. But Bat, somehow, was quite sure it was to hide the expression that swept across her face. However, he went on, calmly: