old chap’s wife went up to the invalid.  She brought down the scrap of intelligence I’ve told you of.  He was already too far gone to be cross-examined on it, and that very night he died.  He didn’t leave behind him much to go by, did he?  Our Willie hinted to me that there had been pretty stormy days in the professor’s house, but—­here they are.  I have a notion she isn’t the kind of everyday young lady who may be permitted to gallop about the world all by herself—­eh?  Well, I think it rather fine of her, but I quite understand that the professor needed all his philosophy under the circumstances.  She is his only child now—­and brilliant—­what?  Willie positively spluttered trying to describe her to me; and I could see directly you came in that you had an uncommon experience.”

Renouard, with an irritated gesture, tilted his hat more forward on his eyes, as though he were bored.  The Editor went on with the remark that to be sure neither he (Renouard) nor yet Willie were much used to meet girls of that remarkable superiority.  Willie when learning business with a firm in London, years before, had seen none but boarding-house society, he guessed.  As to himself in the good old days, when he trod the glorious flags of Fleet Street, he neither had access to, nor yet would have cared for the swells.  Nothing interested him then but parliamentary politics and the oratory of the House of Commons.

He paid to this not very distant past the tribute of a tender, reminiscent smile, and returned to his first idea that for a society girl her action was rather fine.  All the same the professor could not be very pleased.  The fellow if he was as pure as a lily now was just about as devoid of the goods of the earth.  And there were misfortunes, however undeserved, which damaged a man’s standing permanently.  On the other hand, it was difficult to oppose cynically a noble impulse—­not to speak of the great love at the root of it.  Ah!  Love!  And then the lady was quite capable of going off by herself.  She was of age, she had money of her own, plenty of pluck too.  Moorsom must have concluded that it was more truly paternal, more prudent too, and generally safer all round to let himself be dragged into this chase.  The aunt came along for the same reasons.  It was given out at home as a trip round the world of the usual kind.

Renouard had risen and remained standing with his heart beating, and strangely affected by this tale, robbed as it was of all glamour by the prosaic personality of the narrator.  The Editor added:  “I’ve been asked to help in the search—­you know.”