ay, a strange being, for I can hardly think of him as a man. I
have never met any other human creature at all like him."

"He is certainly a queer old fogey," I agreed.

"Yes, but there is something more than that. He is so emotionless, so
remote and aloof from all mundane concerns. He moves among ordinary
men and women, but as a mere presence, an unmoved spectator of their
actions, quite dispassionate and impersonal."

"Yes; he is astonishingly self-contained; in fact, he seems, as you
say, to go to and fro among men, enveloped in a sort of infernal
atmosphere of his own, like Marley's ghost. But he is lively and human
enough as soon as the subject of Egyptian antiquities is broached."

"Lively, but not human. He is always, to me, quite unhuman. Even when
he is most interested, and even enthusiastic, he is a mere
personification of knowledge. Nature ought to have furnished him with
an ibis's head like Tahuti; then he would have looked his part."

"He would have made a rare sensation in Lincoln's Inn if he had," said
I; and we both laughed heartily at the imaginary picture of Tahuti
Jellicoe, slender-beaked and top-hatted, going about his business in
Lincoln's Inn and the Law Courts.

Insensibly, as we talked, we had drawn near to the mummy of
Artemidorus, and now my companion halted before the case with her
thoughtful gray eyes bent dreamily on the face that looked out at us.
I watched her with reverent admiration. How charming she looked as she
stood with her sweet, grave face turned so earnestly to the object of
her mystical affection! How dainty and full of womanly dignity and
grace! And then suddenly it was borne in upon me that a great change
had come over her since the day of our first meeting. She had grown
younger, more girlish, and more gentle. At first she had seemed much
older than I; a sad-faced woman, weary, solemn, enigmatic, almost
gloomy, with a bitter, ironic humor and a bearing distant and cold.
Now she was only maidenly and sweet; tinged, it is true, with a certain
seriousness, but frank and gracious and wholly lovable.

Could the change be due to our friendship? As I asked myself the
question, my heart leaped with a new hope. I yearned to tell her all
that she was to me--all that I hoped we might be to one another in the
years to come.

At length I ventured to break in upon her reverie.

"What are you thinking about so earnestly, fair lady?"

She turned quickly with a bright