"Then you must let me do as we do in another country."
He bent his face to her hand as he spoke, and kissed it. There was no mockery in the action. Done by some people it would have been ridiculous. By Dr. Harrison, in the circumstances, it was in the highest degree graceful. It spoke sympathy, penitence, respect, manly confession, and submission, too simply not to be what it certainly was in some measure, a true expression of feeling. Mrs. Derrick on her part looked amused,—her old recollections of the boy constantly tinged her impressions of the man; and perhaps not without reason.
"You're as like yourself as ever you can be, doctor!" she said, smiling at him. "How you used to try to get round me!"
"I don't remember!" said the doctor. "I am sure I never succeeded, Mrs.
Derrick?"
"I'm afraid you did, sometimes," she said, shaking her head. He smiled a little, and turned the other way.
"Linden, I've been considering the German question."
"Will it please you to state the result?"
"This!" said the doctor. "I have come to the conclusion,—that in order to be One and Somewhat, it is necessary to begin by being Nought and All—Thus ranging myself in security on both sides of a great abyss of metaphysics. What do you think? Unphilosophical?"
"Unsafe—" said Mr. Linden. "And impossible."
"Humph?"—said the doctor. "Nothing is impossible in metaphysics—because you may be on both sides of an abyss, and in the bottom of it!—at once—and without knowing where you are. The angel that rode Milton's sunbeam, you know, was no time at all going from heaven to earth; and I suppose he went the other way as quick."