Hadria was amused at his occasional impulse of egotistic frankness (or what appeared to be such), when he would solemnly analyse his own character, admitting his instinct to deceive with an engaging and scholarly candour.
His penetrating eyes kept a watch upon his audience. His very simplicity seemed to be guarded by his keenness.
Hadria chafed under his persistent effort to attract and interest her. She gave a little inward shiver on finding that there was a vague, unaccountable, and unpleasant fascination in the personality of the man.
It was not charm, it was nothing that inspired admiration; it rather inspired curiosity and stirred the spirit of research, a spirit which evidently animated himself. She felt that, in order to investigate the workings of her mind and her heart, the Professor would have coolly pursued the most ruthless psychical experiments, no matter at what cost of anguish to herself. In the interests of science and humanity, the learned Professor would certainly not hesitate to make one wretched individual agonize.
His appeal to the intellect was stimulatingly strong; it was like a stinging wind, that made one walk at a reckless pace, and brought the blood tingling through every vein. That intellectual force could alone explain the fact of his being counted by Professor Fortescue as a friend. Even then it was a puzzling friendship. Could it be that to Professor Fortescue, he shewed only his best side? His manner was more respectful towards his colleague than towards other men, but even with him he was irreverent in his heart, as towards mankind in general.
To Hadria he spoke of Professor Fortescue with enthusiasm—praising his great power, his generosity, his genial qualities, and his uprightness; then he laughed at him as a modern Don Quixote, and sneered at his efforts to save animal suffering when he might have made a name that would never be forgotten, if he pursued a more fruitful branch of research.
Hadria remarked that Professor Theobald’s last sentence had added the crowning dignity to his eulogium.
He glanced at her, as if taking her measure.
“Fortescue,” he called out, “I envy you your champion. You point, Mrs. Temperley, to lofty altitudes. I, as a mere man, cannot pretend to scale them.”
Then he proceeded to bring down feminine loftiness with virile reason.