“I’m ashamed to come here so often,” said Susie, as she entered. “Matilde is beginning to look at me with a suspicious eye.”
“It is very good of you to entertain a tiresome old man,” he smiled, as he held her hand. “But I should have been disappointed if you had forgotten your promise to come this afternoon, for I have much to tell you.”
“Tell me at once,” she said, sitting down.
“I have discovered an MS. at the library of the Arsenal this morning that no one knew anything about.”
He said this with an air of triumph, as though the achievement were of national importance. Susie had a tenderness for his innocent mania; and, though she knew the work in question was occult and incomprehensible, congratulated him heartily.
“It is the original version of a book by Paracelsus. I have not read it yet, for the writing is most difficult to decipher, but one point caught my eye on turning over the pages. That is the gruesome fact that Paracelsus fed the homunculi he manufactured on human blood. One wonders how he came by it.”
Susie gave a little start, which Dr Porhoët noticed.
“What is the matter with you?”
“Nothing,” she said quickly.
He looked at her for a moment, then proceeded with the subject that strangely fascinated him.