hison."

Guildea was sitting in an armchair, before a small fire. His thin,
long-fingered hands lay outstretched upon his knees, his head was sunk
down on his chest. He appeared to be pondering deeply. Pitting very
slightly raised his voice.

"Father Murchison to see you, sir," he repeated.

The Professor jumped up rather suddenly and turned sharply round as the
Father came in.

"Oh," he said. "It's you, is it? Glad to see you. Come to the fire."

The Father glanced at him and thought him looking unusually fatigued.

"You don't look well to-night," the Father said.

"No?"

"You must be working too hard. That lecture you are going to give in
Paris is bothering you?"

"Not a bit. It's all arranged. I could deliver it to you at this moment
verbatim. Well, sit down."

The Father did so, and Guildea sank once more into his chair and stared
hard into the fire without another word. He seemed to be thinking
profoundly. His friend did not interrupt him, but quietly lit a pipe and
began to smoke reflectively. The eyes of Guildea were fixed upon the
fire. The Father glanced about the room, at the walls of soberly bound
books, at the crowded writing-table, at the windows, before which hung
heavy, dark-blue curtains of old brocade, at the cage, which stood
between them. A green baize covering was thrown over it. The Father
wondered why. He had never seen Napoleon--so the parrot was
named--covered up at night before. While he was looking at the baize,
Guildea suddenly jerked up his head, and, taking his hands from his
knees and clasping them, said abruptly:

"D'you think I'm an attractive man?"

Father Murchison jumped. Such a question coming from such a man
astounded him.

"Bless me!" he ejaculated. "What makes you ask? Do you mean attractive
to the opposite sex?"

"That's what I don't know," said the Professor gloomily, and staring
again into the fire. "That's what I don't know."

The Father grew more astonished.

"Don't know!" he exclaimed.

And he laid down his pipe.

"Let's say--d'you think I'm attractive, that there's anything about me
which might draw a--a human being, or an animal, irresistibly to me?"

"Whether you desired it or not?"

"Exactly--or--no, let us say definitely--if I did not desire it."

Father Murchison pursed up his rather full, cherubic lips, and little
wrinkles appeared about the corners of his blue eyes.

"There might be, of course," he said, after a pause. "Human nature is
we