“Ah, where!” echoed a deep, rather pleasant voice close at her ear. “That, as Hamlet remarked, is the question!”
She started and turned quickly with a flush of colour mounting to her brows,—a man of slight build and medium height stood beside her.
“You are Dr. Dimitrius?” she said.
He smiled. “Even so! I am he! And you——?”
Swiftly she glanced him over. He was not at all an alarming, weird, or extraordinary-looking personage. Young?—yes, surely young for a man—not above forty; and very personable, if intelligent features, fine eyes and a good figure can make a man agreeable to outward view. And yet there was something about him more than mere appearance,—she could not tell what it was, and just then she had no time to consider. She rushed at once into the business of her errand.
“My name is May,—Diana May,” she said, conscious of nervousness in speaking, but mastering herself by degrees. “I have come from England in answer to your advertisement. I am interested—very deeply interested—in matters of modern science, and I have gained some little knowledge through a good deal of personal, though quite unguided study. I am most anxious to be useful—and I am not afraid to take any risks——”
She broke off, a little confused under the steady scrutiny of Dr. Dimitrius’s eyes. He placed an easy chair by the nearest window. “Pray sit down!” he said, with a courteous gesture,—then, as she obeyed: “You have walked here from Geneva?”
“Yes.”
“When did you arrive from England?”
“Two days ago.”