"D'you think I'm an attractive man?"
Father Murchison jumped. Such a question coming from such a man astounded him.
"Bless me!" he ejaculated. "What makes you ask? Do you mean attractive to the opposite sex?"
"That's what I don't know," said the Professor gloomily, and staring again into the fire. "That's what I don't know."
The Father grew more astonished.
"Don't know!" he exclaimed.
And he laid down his pipe.
"Let's say—d'you think I'm attractive, that there's anything about me which might draw a—a human being, or an animal, irresistibly to me?"
"Whether you desired it or not?"
"Exactly—or—no, let us say definitely—if I did not desire it."