vor of, rather than in opposition to, his accepting it--always
assuming that you have no real feeling against his doing so."

Miss Bellingham looked at me thoughtfully for a few moments, and then
laughed softly.

"So the great kindness that I am to do you is to let you do me a
further kindness through your friend?"

"No," I protested; "that is where you are mistaken. It isn't
benevolence on Doctor Thorndyke's part; it's professional enthusiasm."

She smiled sceptically.

"You don't believe in it," I said; "but consider other cases. Why does
a surgeon get out of bed on a winter's night to do an emergency
operation at a hospital? He doesn't get paid for it. Do you think it
is altruism?"

"Yes, of course. Isn't it?"

"Certainly not. He does it because it is his job, because it is his
business to fight with disease--and win."

"I don't see much difference," she said. "It's work done for love
instead of for payment. However, I will do as you ask if the
opportunity arises; but I shan't suppose that I am repaying your
kindness to me."

"I don't mind so long as you do it," I said, and we walked on for some
time in silence.

"Isn't it odd," she said presently, "how our talk always seems to come
back to my uncle? Oh, and that reminds me that the things he gave to
the Museum are in the same room as the Ahkhenaten relief. Would you
like to see them?"

"Of course I should."

"Then we will go and look at them first." She paused, and then, rather
shyly and with a rising color, she continued: "And I think I should
like to introduce you to a very dear friend of mine--with your
permission, of course."

This last addition she made hastily, seeing, I suppose, that I looked
rather glum at the suggestion. Inwardly I consigned her friend to the
devil, especially if of the masculine gender; outwardly I expressed my
felicity at making the acquaintance of any person whom she should honor
with her friendship. Whereat, to my discomfiture, she laughed
enigmatically; a very soft laugh, low-pitched and musical, like the
cooing of a glorified pigeon.

I strolled on by her side, speculating a little anxiously on the coming
introduction. Was I being conducted to the lair of one of the savants
attached to the establishment? and would he add a superfluous third to
our little party of two, so complete and companionable, _solus cum
sola_, in this populated wilderness? Above all, would he turn out to
be a young man, and bri