e two at the other table.

"Tissotius timuit, jam peregrinus adest!" the big man murmured in a
voice at once silky and sonorous. Then ignoring Mercier, but looking
blandly at the young man who sat facing him at the table, "What is this
of Tissot?" he continued. "Can it be," with a side-glance at the
newcomer, "that we have lost our--I may not call him our quintessence or
alcahest--rather shall I say our baser ore, that at the virgin touch of
our philosophical stone blushed into ruddy gold? And burned ever
brighter and hotter in her presence! Tissot gone, and with him all those
fair experiments! Is it possible?"

The young man's grin showed that he savoured a jest. But, "I know
nothing," he muttered sheepishly. "'Tis new to me."

"Tissot gone!" the big man repeated in a tone humorously melancholy. "No
more shall we

Upon his viler metal test our purest pure,
And see him transmutations three endure!

Tissot gone! And you, sir, come in his place. What change is here! A
stranger, I believe?"

"In Geneva, yes," Claude answered, wondering and a little abashed. The
man spoke with an air of power and weight.

"And a student, doubtless in our Academia? Like our Tissot? Yes. It may
be," he continued in the same smooth tones wherein ridicule and
politeness appeared to be so nicely mingled that it was difficult to
judge if he spoke in jest or earnest, "like him in other things! It may
be that we have gained and not lost. And that qualities finer and more
susceptible underlie an exterior more polished and an ease more
complete," he bowed, "than our poor Tissot could boast! But here is

Our stone angelical whereby
All secret potencies to light are brought!

Doubtless"--with a wave of the hand he indicated the girl who had that
moment entered--"you have met before?"

"I could not otherwise," Claude answered coldly--he began to resent both
the man and his manner--"have engaged the lodging." And he rose to take
from the girl's hand the broth she was bringing him. She, on her side,
made no sign that she noticed a change, or that it was no longer Tissot
she served. She gave him what he needed, mechanically and without
meeting his eyes. Then turning to the others, she waited on them after
the same fashion. For a minute or two there was silence in the room.

A strange silence, Claude thought, listening and wondering: as strange
and embarrassing as the talk of the man who shared with Grio the table
by the firepl