“Something will have to be done soon.  We can’t remain in a state of suspended expectation for ever.  Tell me what do you think of our chances?”

Renouard, speechless, produced a faint smile.  The professor confessed in a jocular tone his impatience to complete the circuit of the globe and be done with it.  It was impossible to remain quartered on the dear excellent Dunsters for an indefinite time.  And then there were the lectures he had arranged to deliver in Paris.  A serious matter.

That lectures by Professor Moorsom were a European event and that brilliant audiences would gather to hear them Renouard did not know.  All he was aware of was the shock of this hint of departure.  The menace of separation fell on his head like a thunderbolt.  And he saw the absurdity of his emotion, for hadn’t he lived all these days under the very cloud?  The professor, his elbows spread out, looked down into the garden and went on unburdening his mind.  Yes.  The department of sentiment was directed by his daughter, and she had plenty of volunteered moral support; but he had to look after the practical side of life without assistance.

“I have the less hesitation in speaking to you about my anxiety, because I feel you are friendly to us and at the same time you are detached from all these sublimities—­confound them.”

“What do you mean?” murmured Renouard.

“I mean that you are capable of calm judgment.  Here the atmosphere is simply detestable.  Everybody has knuckled under to sentiment.  Perhaps your deliberate opinion could influence . . .”

“You want Miss Moorsom to give it up?” The professor turned to the young man dismally.

“Heaven only knows what I want.”

Renouard leaning his back against the balustrade folded his arms on his breast, appeared to meditate profoundly.  His face, shaded softly by the broad brim of a planter’s Panama hat, with the straight line of the nose level with the forehead, the eyes lost in the depth of the setting, and the chin well forward, had such a profile as may be seen amongst the bronzes of classical museums, pure under a crested helmet—­recalled vaguely a Minerva’s head.

“This is the most troublesome time I ever had in my life,” exclaimed the professor testily.

“Surely the man must be worth it,” muttered Renouard with a pang of jealousy traversing his breast like a self-inflicted stab.

Whether enervated by the heat or giving way to pent up irritation the professor surrendered himself to the mood of sincerity.

“He began by being a pleasantly dull boy.  He developed into a pointlessly clever young man, without, I suspect, ever trying to understand anything.  My daughter knew him from childhood.  I am a busy man, and I confess that their engagement was a complete surprise to me.  I wish their reasons for that step had been more naive.  But simplicity was out of fashion in their set.  From a worldly