"
Tavernake looked at him in a puzzled way. The professor was a
riddle to him. He represented no type which had come within the
orbit of his experience. With the arrival of the champagne, the
professor became almost eloquent. He leaned forward, gazing
stealthily down at the round table.
"If I could tell you of that girl's mother, Mr. Tavernake," he
said, "if I could tell you what her history, our history, has
been, it would seem to you so strange that you would probably
regard me as a romancer. No, we have to carry our secrets with
us."
"By-the-bye," Tavernake asked, "what are you a professor of?"
"Of the hidden sciences, sir," was the immediate reply.
"Phrenology was my earliest love. Since then I have studied in
the East; I have spent many years in a monastery in China. I
have gratified in every way my natural love of the occult. I
represent today those people of advanced thought who have
traveled, even in spirit, for ever such a little distance across
the line which divides the Seen from the Unseen, the Known from
the Infinite."
He took a long draught of champagne. Tavernake gazed at him in
blank amazement.
"I don't know much about science," he said. "It is only lately
that I have begun to realize how ignorant I really am. Your
daughter has helped to teach me."
The professor sighed heavily.
"A young woman of attainments, sir," he remarked, "of character,
too. Look at the way she carries her head. That was a trick of
her mother's.
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