"Fresh air," she said to Grey, jerking her head emphatically toward the open door.
"I will, Looey."
"Looey! Pish!"
It was no admiring glance she bestowed on the slight figure that came down the stairs, and stood timidly waiting for McKinstry.
"You're going, Captain?" the old man's nose and mind starting suddenly up from his folio. "Lizzy,—eh? Here's the bit of rock. In the coal formation, you say? Impossible, then, to be as old as the batrachian track that"—
A sudden howl brought him back to the present era. Loo was arguing her charge up to bed by a syllogism applied at the right time in the right place. The old man held his hands to his ears with a patient smile, until McKinstry was out of hearing.
"It is hard to devote the mind pure to a search for truth here, my daughter," looking over Grey's head as usual, with pensive, benevolent eyes. "But I do what I can,—I do what I can."
"I know, father,"—stroking his hair as she might a child's, trimming the lamp, and bringing his slippers while he held out his feet for her to put them on,—"I know."
Then, when he took up the pen, she went out into the cool night.
"I do what I can," said he, earnestly, looking at the catalogue, with his head to one side.