For the first time Margaret exhibited some interest in the conversation.
“Professor Renmark? I have heard of him.”
“Dear me! I had no idea the fame of the professor had penetrated beyond the precincts of the university—if a university has precincts. He told me it had all the modern improvements, but I suspected at the time that was merely Renny’s brag.”
The frown on the girl’s brow deepened, and Yates was quick to see that he had lost ground again, if, indeed, he had ever gained any, which he began to doubt. She evidently did not relish his glib talk about the university. He was just about to say something deferentially about that institution, for he was not a man who would speak disrespectfully of the equator if he thought he might curry favor with his auditor by doing otherwise, when it occurred to him that Miss Howard’s interest was centered in the man, and not in the university.
“In this world, Miss Howard,” he continued, “true merit rarely finds its reward; at least, the reward shows some reluctance in making itself visible in time for man to enjoy it. Professor Renmark is a man so worthy that I was rather astonished to learn that you knew of him. I am glad for his sake that it is so, for no man more thoroughly deserves fame than he.”
“I know nothing of him,” said Margaret, “except what my brother has written. My brother is a student at the university.”
“Is he really? And what is he going in for?”
“A good education.”
Yates laughed.
“Well, that is an all-round handy thing for a person to have about him. I often wish I had had a university training. Still, it is not valued in an American newspaper office as much as might be. Yet,” he added in a tone that showed he did not desire to be unfair to a man of education, “I have known some university men who became passably good reporters in time.”