“Quite so,” said Warner, with a smile that seemed moulded in marble—­“that we all have to thank you very much for that telegram.”

The little Yankee scientist had been speaking with such evident sincerity that one forgot the tricks of his voice and manner—­ the falling eyelids, the rising intonation, and the poised finger and thumb—­which were at other times a little comic.  It was not so much that he was cleverer than Warner; perhaps he was not so clever, though he was more celebrated.  But he had what Warner never had, a fresh and unaffected seriousness—­ the great American virtue of simplicity.  Rosamund knitted her brows and looked gloomily toward the darkening house that contained the dark prodigy.

Broad daylight still endured; but it had already changed from gold to silver, and was changing from silver to gray.  The long plumy shadows of the one or two trees in the garden faded more and more upon a dead background of dusk.  In the sharpest and deepest shadow, which was the entrance to the house by the big French windows, Rosamund could watch a hurried consultation between Inglewood (who was still left in charge of the mysterious captive) and Diana, who had moved to his assistance from without.  After a few minutes and gestures they went inside, shutting the glass doors upon the garden; and the garden seemed to grow grayer still.

The American gentleman named Pym seemed to be turning and on the move in the same direction; but before he started he spoke to Rosamund with a flash of that guileless tact which redeemed much of his childish vanity, and with something of that spontaneous poetry which made it difficult, pedantic as he was, to call him a pedant.

“I’m vurry sorry, Miss Hunt,” he said; “but Dr. Warner and I, as two quali-FIED practitioners, had better take Mr. Smith away in that cab, and the less said about it the better.  Don’t you agitate yourself, Miss Hunt.  You’ve just got to think that we’re taking away a monstrosity, something that oughtn’t to be at all—­something like one of those gods in your Britannic Museum, all wings, and beards, and legs, and eyes, and no shape.  That’s what Smith is, and you shall soon be quit of him.”

He had already taken a step towards the house, and Warner was about to follow him, when the glass doors were opened again and Diana Duke came out with more than her usual quickness across the lawn.  Her face was aquiver with worry and excitement, and her dark earnest eyes fixed only on the other girl.

“Rosamund,” she cried in despair, “what shall I do with her?”

“With her?” cried Miss Hunt, with a violent jump.  “O lord, he isn’t a woman too, is he?”

“No, no, no,” said Dr. Pym soothingly, as if in common fairness.  “A woman? no, really, he is not so bad as that.”

“I mean your friend Mary Gray,” retorted Diana with equal tartness.  “What on earth am I to do with her?”

“How can we tell her about Smith, you mean,” answered Rosamund, her face at once clouded and softening.  “Yes, it will be pretty painful.”