She felt the reaction of bitter disappointment. A man like him had no right to throw up the sponge. The sudden blankness of her face betrayed her thoughts. He smiled.
“I said literally, you know. Fossilizing in the literal and practical sense. Once upon a time I was a geologist. I specialized in certain fossils.”
“Oh,” gasped Olivia. “I beg your pardon.”
“Very fascinating little fossils,” he went on without reference to her apology, for which Olivia was grateful. “They’re called foraminifera. Do you know what they are?” Olivia shook a frankly ignorant head. “They’re little tiny weeny shells, and the things once inside them belonged to the protozoa, or first forms of life. They’re one of the starting-points to the solution of the riddle of existence. I was dragged away from them to fool about with other kinds of shells, millions of times bigger and millions of times less important. I’ve got what I think are some new ideas about them, and other things connected with them—it’s a vast subject—and so I’m looking for a quiet place where I can carry on my work.”
“That’s awfully interesting,” said Olivia. “But—forgive me—who pays you for it?”
“Possibly mankind two hundred years hence,” he laughed. “But, if I stick it long enough, they may make me a Fellow of the Royal Society when I’m—say—seventy-three.”
“I wish you’d tell me some more about these forami—funny little things I’ve never heard of,” said Olivia.
But he answered: “No. If once I began, I would bore you so stiff that you would curse the hour you allowed me to cross your threshold. There are other things just as vital as foraminifera. I’ve made my confession, Miss Gale. Now, won’t you make yours? What are you keen on?”
At the direct question, Olivia passed in review the aims and interests and pleasures of her past young life, and was abashed to find them a row of anæmic little phantoms. For years her head had been too full of duties. She regarded him for a moment or two in dismay, then she laughed in young defiance.
“I suppose I’m keen on real live human beings. That’s my starting-point to the solution of the riddle of existence.”