Margaret cried out, for she recognized Oliver Haddo’s deep bantering tones; and she turned round quickly. They were all so taken aback that for a moment no one spoke. They were gathered round the window and had not heard him come in. They wondered guiltily how long he had been there and how much he had heard.
“How on earth did you get here?” cried Susie lightly, recovering herself first.
“No well-bred sorcerer is so dead to the finer feelings as to enter a room by the door,” he answered, with his puzzling smile. “You were standing round the window, and I thought it would startle you if I chose that mode of ingress, so I descended with incredible skill down the chimney.”
“I see a little soot on your left elbow,” returned Susie. “I hope you weren’t at all burned.”
“Not at all, thanks,” he answered, gravely brushing his coat.
“In whatever way you came, you are very welcome,” said Dr Porhoët, genially holding out his hand.
But Arthur impatiently turned to his host.
“I wish I knew what made you engage upon these studies,” he said. “I should have thought your medical profession protected you from any tenderness towards superstition.”
Dr Porhoët shrugged his shoulders.
“I have always been interested in the oddities of mankind. At one time I read a good deal of philosophy and a good deal of science, and I learned in that way that nothing was certain. Some people, by the pursuit of science, are impressed with the dignity of man, but I was only made conscious of his insignificance. The greatest questions of all have been threshed out since he acquired the beginnings of civilization and he is as far from a solution as ever. Man can know nothing, for his senses are his only means of knowledge, and they can give no certainty. There is only one subject upon which the individual can speak with authority, and that is his own mind, but even here he is surrounded with darkness. I believe that we shall always be ignorant of the matters which it most behoves us to know, and therefore I cannot occupy myself with them. I prefer to set them all aside, and, since knowledge is unattainable, to occupy myself only with folly.”