"You will pardon me, Madam, but I must ask you to leave us. My control
warns me that I am in the presence of an individuality stronger than my
own. His powerful mind is projecting the most vital queries. I shall be
compelled to disclose to him matters he would perhaps not wish a third
person to overhear. I see a line of mighty rulers, ruthless,
red-handed--the past of his soul."
The Countess murmurously withdrew. The two males faced each other.
[Illustration: "I feared he was discommoding you," ventured the
Countess, elegantly apologetic]
The professor was a mere sketch of a man, random, rakish, with head
aslant and shifty eyes forever dropping away from a questioner's face.
He abounded in inhuman angles and impossible lines. It seemed that he
must have been rather dashingly done in the first place, then half
obliterated and badly mended with fumbling, indecisive touches. His
restless hands unceasingly wrung each other as if he had that moment
made his own acquaintance and was trying to infuse a false geniality
into the meeting.
When he spoke he had a trick of opening his mouth for a word and holding
it so, a not over-clean forefinger poised above an outheld palm. It
seemed to the listener that the word when it came would mean much. His
white moustache alone had a well-finished look, curving jauntily upward.
"Sit there!" An authoritative finger pointed Bean to the chair he had
lately occupied.
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