“I suppose you have known Dr. Dimitrius for some time?” he asked.
Diana thought for a second,—then replied promptly:
“Oh, yes!”
“He’s a wonderful man!” said Farnese. “Wonderful! I have myself witnessed his cures of cases given up by all other doctors as hopeless. I have asked him to accept me as a student under him, but he will not. He has some mystery which he will allow no one but himself to penetrate.”
“Really!” and Diana lifted her eyebrows in an arch of surprise. “He has never given me that impression.”
“Ah, no!” and Farnese smiled rather darkly. “He would not appear in that light to one of your sex. He does not care for women. His own mother is not really aware of the nature of his studies or the object of his work. Nobody has his confidence. As you are a friend of his you must know this quite well?”
“Oh, yes!—yes, of course!” murmured Diana, absently. “But nobody expects a very clever man to explain himself to his friends—or to the public. He must always do his work more or less alone.”
“I agree!” said the Marchese. “And this is why I cannot understand the action of Dimitrius in advertising for an assistant——”
“Oh, has he done so?” inquired Diana, indifferently.
“Yes,—for the last couple of months he has put a most eccentric advertisement in many of the journals, seeking the services of an elderly woman as assistant or secretary—I don’t know which. It’s some odd new notion of his, and, I venture to think, rather a mistaken one—for if he will not trust a man student, how much less can he rely on an old woman!”