“As such I salute it!” said Spence, gravely.

The other made no attempt to continue the conversation.  She retired into the fastness of the green cloak, leaving the professor to ponder the situation.  It seemed on the face of it an absurd situation enough, yet there should certainly be nothing absurd in it.  Spence felt a somewhat bulky package of letters even now in the pocket of his coat.  These letters were real and sensible enough.  They comprised his correspondence with one Dr. Herbert Farr, Vancouver, B. C. As letters they were quite charming.  The earlier ones had dealt with the professor’s pet subject, primitive psychology.  The later ones had been more personal.  Spence found himself remembering such phrases as “my humble but picturesque home,” “my Chinese servant, a factotum extraordinary,” “my young daughter who attends to all my simple wants” and “my secretary on whose efficient aid I more and more depend—­”

“I suppose there is a secretary?” he asked suddenly.

“Oh yes,” answered the green cloak, “I’m it.”

“And, ’a young daughter who attends’—­”

“—­’to all my simple wants?’ That’s me, too.”

“But you can’t be ‘my Chinese servant, a factotum extraordinary?’”

“No, you have already met Li Ho.”

“There?” queried the professor, gesturing weakly.

“Yes.”

Spence pulled himself together.  “There must be a home, though,” he asserted firmly, “’Humble but picturesque’—­”

“Well,” admitted the voice from the green cloak, “it is rather picturesque.  And it is certainly humble.”

Suddenly she laughed.  It was a very young laugh.  The professor felt relieved.  She was a girl, then, not a woman.

“Isn’t father too’ amusing?” she asked pleasantly.

“Quite too much so,” agreed the professor.  He was very cold.  “I beg your pardon,” he added stiffly, remembering his manners.

“Oh, I don’t mind!” The girl assured him.  “Father is a dreadful old fraud.  I have no illusions.  But perhaps it isn’t so bad after all.  He really is quite an authority on the West Coast Indians,—­if that is what you wish to consult him about.”

Professor Spence was in a quandary.  But perfect frankness seemed indicated.

“I didn’t come to consult him about anything,” he said slowly.  “I am a psychologist.  I wish to do my own observing, at first hand.  I came not to question Dr. Farr, but to board with him.”

“Board with him!”

In her heartfelt surprise the girl turned to him and he saw her face, young, arresting, and excessively indignant.

“Quite so,” he said.  “Do not excite yourself.  I perceive the impossibility.  I can’t have you attending to my wants, however simple.  Neither can I share the services of a secretary whose post, I gather, is an honorary one.  But I simply cannot go back to Mr. Johnston’s grin:  so if you can put me up for the night—­”