ings in just that way, not seeing--other things--Oh, we thought that
perhaps--perhaps----"

It was futile, incoherent; her tongue seemed to dry in her mouth.
Besides, the abashed woman needs must pause before a silence that to her
strained sense seemed rebuking. She glanced furtively up at the youth
standing there. It troubled the mistress of Heartholm to realize that
her protA(C)gA(C) was staring gravely at her, as if she had proposed some
guilty and shameful thing.

At last Berber, with a boyish sigh, seemed to shake the whole matter
off. He turned to his bulbs; half at random he caught up a
pruning-knife, cutting vindictively into one of them. For the moment
there was silence, then the young gardener called his mistress's
attention to the severed root in his hand.

"A winy-looking thing, isn't it? See those red fibers? Why shouldn't
such roots, and nuts like those great, burnished horse-chestnuts
there--yes, and cattails, and poke-berries, and skunk cabbages, give
forth an entirely new outfit of fruits and vegetables?" Berber smiled
his young ruminating smile; then, with inevitable courtesy, he seemed to
remember that he had not answered her question. "I am not surprised that
you and Mr. Strang thought such things about me. I wonder that you have
not questioned me before--only you see _now_--I can't answer!" The boy
gave her his slow, serious smile, reminding her.

"You must remember that I am like a foreigner--only worse off, for
foreigners pick up a few words for their most vital needs, and I have no
words at all--for what--for what vital things I used to know--so that
perhaps in time I shall come to forget that I ever knew anything
different from--other persons' knowledge." Berber paused, regarding his
mistress intently, as if wistfully trying to see what she made of all
this. Then he continued:

"One of our professors at college died, and the men of his class were
gloomy; some even cried, others could not trust themselves to speak of
him.... I noticed that they all called him 'poor' Landworth.... I could
see that they felt something the way I do when I miss out on a chemical
experiment, or spoil a valuable specimen--only more so--a great deal
more." The boy knit his brows, puzzling it all out. "Well, it's queer. I
liked that professor, too; he was very kind to me--but when I saw him
dead I felt glad--glad! Why"--Berber looked at her searchingly--"I grew
to be afraid some one would find out _how_ glad!"

Th