When Quong Ho appeared, books and papers as usual under his arm, Baltazar waved an inviting arm.
“Take a chair, Quong Ho, and let us talk. Elliptic Functions are too inhuman for me to-night.”
Quong Ho put his burden down on the table and brought up a straight-backed, rush-bottomed chair, and sat down stiffly, facing his master, who took up his parable.
“I’ve been thinking of what you said at dinner. You touched on a spiritual aspect of the hypothetical emotion we were discussing which did not occur to me. What made you do it?”
“Sir,” replied Quong Ho, “if you will permit me to speak my thoughts, I cannot separate life into two watertight departments——”
“Compartments,” murmured Baltazar, through force of habit.
Quong Ho bowed. “I recollect. To resume. I cannot separate life into two watertight compartments—the material and the spiritual. It appears to me to be the subtle interfusion, the solemnization of holy matrimony, between the two.”
“One of the charms, my son, of your conversation,” laughed Baltazar, “is its unexpected allusiveness.”
Quong Ho rose and made a deep bow. “You have called me, sir, by a term which overwhelms me with filial gratitude.”
Baltazar, who had used the word deliberately, held out his hand.