ctacles, you know--and--well--oh, yes, he _is_ old, distinctly
old!"

CHAPTER VI

"He is happy whose circumstances suit his temper; but he is more
excellent who can suit his temper to any circumstances."

"The idea of _your_ having a ward! I could quite as soon imagine your
having a wife," says Hardinge. He knocks the ash off his cigar, and
after meditating for a moment, leans back in his chair and gives way to
irrepressible mirth.

"I don't see why I shouldn't have a wife as well as another," says the
professor, idly tapping his forefinger on the table near him. "She would
bore me. But a great many fellows are bored."

"You have grasped one great truth if you never grasp another!" says Mr.
Hardinge, who has now recovered. "Catch _me_ marrying."

"It's unlucky to talk like that," says the professor. "It looks as
though your time were near. In Sophocles' time there was a man who----"

"Oh, bother Sophocles, you know I never let you talk anything but
wholesome nonsense when I drop in for a smoke with you," says the
younger man. "You began very well, with that superstition of yours, but
I won't have it spoiled by erudition. Tell me about your ward."

"Would that be nonsense?" says the professor, with a faint smile.

They are sitting in the professor's room with the windows thrown wide
open to let in any chance gust of air that Heaven in its mercy may send
them. It is night, and very late at night too--the clock indeed is on
the stroke of twelve. It seems a long, long time to the professor since
the afternoon--the afternoon of this very day--when he had seen Perpetua
sitting in that open carriage. He had only been half glad when Harold
Hardinge--a young man, and yet, strange to say, his most intimate
friend--had dropped in to smoke a pipe with him. Hardinge was fonder of
the professor than he knew, and was drawn to him by curious intricate
webs. The professor suited him, and he suited the professor, though in
truth Hardinge was nothing more than a gay young society man, with just
the average amount of brains, but not an ounce beyond that.

A tall, handsome young man, with fair brown hair and hazel eyes, a dark
moustache and a happy manner, Mr. Hardinge laughs his way through life,
without money, or love, or any other troubles.

"Can you ask?" says he. "Go on, Curzon. What is she like?"

"It wouldn't interest you," says the professor.

"I beg your pardon, it is profoundly interesting; I've got