“By-the-bye,” Tavernake asked, “what are you a professor of?”

“Of the hidden sciences, sir,” was the immediate reply.  “Phrenology was my earliest love.  Since then I have studied in the East; I have spent many years in a monastery in China.  I have gratified in every way my natural love of the occult.  I represent today those people of advanced thought who have traveled, even in spirit, for ever such a little distance across the line which divides the Seen from the Unseen, the Known from the Infinite.”

He took a long draught of champagne.  Tavernake gazed at him in blank amazement.

“I don’t know much about science,” he said.  “It is only lately that I have begun to realize how ignorant I really am.  Your daughter has helped to teach me.”

The professor sighed heavily.

“A young woman of attainments, sir,” he remarked, “of character, too.  Look at the way she carries her head.  That was a trick of her mother’s.”

“Don’t you mean to speak to her at all, then?” Tavernake asked.

“I dare not,” the professor replied.  “I am naturally of a truthful disposition, and if Elizabeth were to ask me if I had spoken to her sister, I should give myself away at once.  No, I look on and that is all.”

Tavernake drummed with his fingers upon the tablecloth.  Something in the merriment of that little party downstairs had filled him with a very bitter feeling.

“You ought to go and claim her, professor,” he declared.  “Look down at them now.  Is that the best life for a girl?  The men are almost strangers to her, and the girls are not fit for her to associate with.  She has no friends, no relatives.  Your daughter Elizabeth can do without you very well.  She is strong enough to take care of herself.”

“But my dear sir,” the professor objected, “Beatrice could not support me.”

Tavernake paid his bill without another word.  Downstairs the lights had been lowered, the party at the round table were already upon their feet.

“Good-night, professor!” he said.  “I am going to see the last of Beatrice from the top of the stairs.”

The professor followed him—­they stood there and watched her depart with Annie Legarde.  The two girls got into a taxicab together, and Tavernake breathed a sigh of relief, a relief for which he was wholly unable to account, when he saw that Grier made no effort to follow them.  As soon as the taxi had rolled away, they descended and passed into the street.  Then the professor suddenly changed his tone.

“Mr. Tavernake,” he said, “I know what you are thinking about me:  I am a weak old man who drinks too much and who wasn’t born altogether honest.  I can’t give up anything.  I’d be happier, really happier, on a crust with Beatrice, but I daren’t, I simply daren’t try it.  I prefer the flesh pots with Elizabeth, and you despise me for it.  I don’t blame you, Mr. Tavernake, but listen.”