It was not long before we heard him wandering in the upper halls, and hastening to his rescue I found him muttering apologies before a door through which apparently he had blundered, looking for the staircase. Safe on the lower floor again, Letitia put him at his ease with her kind questions about Egyptology, and the delighted scientist was in the midst of a glowing narrative of the great stone of Iris-Iris when dinner was announced. It was evident that Dove's table quite disconcerted him with its superfluity of glass and silver, and dropping his meat-fork on the floor, he strenuously resisted all Dove's orders to replace it from the pantry.
"No, no, dear madam," he exclaimed, pointing to the shining row beside his plate, "do not disturb yourself, I pray. One of these extras here will do quite as well."
During the dinner Letitia plied him with further questions till he wellnigh forgot his plate in his elation at finding such sympathetic auditors. Dove considerately delayed the courses while he talked on, bobbing forward and backward in his chair, his slight frame swayed by his agitation, his face glowing, and his beard bristling with its contortions.
"Never," he told me afterwards, as we passed from the dining-room arm-in-arm—"never have I enjoyed more charming and intelligent conversation—never, sir!"
I offered him cigars, but he declined them, observing that while he never used "the weed," he had up-stairs in his valise, if we would permit him—
We did so, though none the wiser as to what he meant, for he did not complete his sentence, but, bowing acknowledgment, he briskly disappeared, to return at once without further mishap in our deceitful upper hallway—reappearing with a paper bag which he untwisted and offered gallantly to the ladies.
"Lemon-drops," he said. "Permit me, Mrs. Weatherby. Oh, take more, Miss Letitia—do, I beg; they are quite inexpensive, I assure you—quite harmless and inexpensive. Help yourself liberally, Mrs. Weatherby. Lemon-drops, as you are doubtless aware, doctor, are the most healthful of sweets, and as a—have another, Miss Primrose, do!—as a relaxation after the day's toil are much to be preferred, if you will pardon my saying so, Dr. Weatherby—much to be preferred to that poisonous cigar you are smoking there."
"Quite right, Mr. Percival," I assented.
"They are very nice," Dove said.
"Oh, they are delicious!" cried Letitia.