Part 38 (1/2)

”You know so much,” she replied, ”and it really doesn't seem to matter.

Tell me, father, how do you spend your time?”

”I must confess, dear,” the professor said, ”that I have little to do.

Your sister Elizabeth is quite generous.”

Beatrice sat back in her chair as though she had been struck.

”Father,” she exclaimed, ”listen! You are living on that money! Doesn't it seem terrible to you? Oh, how can you do it!”

The professor looked at his daughter with an expression of pained surprise.

”My dear,” he explained, ”your sister Elizabeth has always been the moneyed one of the family. She has brains and I trust her. It is not for me to inquire as to the source of the comforts she provides for me. I feel myself ent.i.tled to receive them, and so I accept.”

”But, father,” she went on, ”can't you see--don't you know that it's his money--Wenham's?”

”It is not a matter, this, my child,” the professor observed, sharply, ”which we can discuss before strangers. Some day we will speak of it, you and I.”

”Has he--been heard of?” she asked, in a whisper.

The professor frowned.

”A hot-tempered young man, my dear,” he declared uneasily, ”a hot tempered young man, indeed. Elizabeth gives me to understand that it was just an ordinary quarrel and away he went.”

Beatrice was white to the lips.

”An ordinary quarrel!” she muttered.

She sat quite still. Tavernake unconsciously found himself watching her.

There were things in her eyes which frightened him. It seemed as though she were looking out of the gay little restaurant, with its lights and music and air of comfort, out into some distant quarter of the world, some other and very different place. She was living through something which chilled her heart, something terrifying. Tavernake saw those things in her face and his eyes spelt them out mercilessly.

”Father,” she whispered, leaning towards him, ”do you believe what you have just been saying to me?”

It was the professor's turn to be disturbed. He concealed his discomfiture, however, with a gesture of annoyance.

”That is scarcely a proper question, Beatrice,” he answered sharply.

”Ah,” he added, with more geniality, ”the c.o.c.ktails! My young friend Tavernake, I drink to our better acquaintance! You are English, as I can see, a real Britisher. Some day you must come out to our own great country--my daughter, of course, has told you that we are Americans. A great country, sir,--the greatest I have ever lived in--room to breathe, room to grow, room for a young man like you to plant his ambitions and watch them blossom. To our better acquaintance, Mr. Tavernake, and may we meet some day in the United States!”

Tavernake drank the first c.o.c.ktail in his life and wiped the tears from his eyes. The professor found safety in conversation.

”You know,” he went on, ”that I am a man of science. Physiognomy delights me. Men and women as I meet them represent to me varying types of humanity, all interesting, all appealing to my peculiar love of the science of psychology. You, my dear Mr. Tavernake, if I may venture to be so personal, represent to me, as you sit there, the exact prototype of the young working Englishman. You are, I should judge, thorough, dogmatic, narrow, persistent, industrious, and bound to be successful according to the scope and nature of your ambitions. In this country you will never develop. In my country, sir, we should make a colossus of you. We should teach you not to be content with small things; we should raise your hand which you yourself kept to your side, and we should point your finger to the skies. Waiter,” he added, turning abruptly round, ”if the quails are not yet ready I will take another of these excellent c.o.c.ktails.”

Tavernake was embarra.s.sed. He saw that Beatrice was anxious to talk to her father; he saw, also, that her father was determined not to talk to her. With a little sigh, however, she resigned herself to the inevitable.

”I have lectured, sir,” the professor continued, ”in most of the cities of the United States, upon the human race. The tendencies of every unit of the human race are my peculiar study. When I speak to you of phrenology, sir, you smile, and you think, perhaps, of a man who sits in a back room and takes your s.h.i.+lling for feeling the b.u.mps of your head.

I am not of this order of scientific men, sir. I have diplomas from every university worth mentioning. I blend the sciences which treat with the human race. I know something of all of them. Character reading to me is at once a pa.s.sion and a science. Leave me alone with a man or a woman for five minutes, paint me a map of Life, and I will set the signposts along which that person will travel, and I shall not miss one.”

”You are doing no work over here, father, are you?” Beatrice asked.

”None, my dear,” he answered, with a faint note of regret in his tone.