The professor gets up suddenly. "Not that," says he, raising his hand in his gentle fashion--that has now something of haste in it. "It--I--you know what I mean, Hardinge. To discuss her--herself, I mean--and here----" "Yes. You are right," says Hardinge slowly, with, however, an irrepressible stare at the professor. It is a prolonged stare. He is very fond of Curzon, though knowing absolutely nothing about him beyond the fact that he is eminently likeable; and it now strikes him as strange that this silent, awkward, ill-dressed, clever man should be the one to teach him how to behave himself. Who _is_ Curzon? Given a better tailor, and a worse brain, he might be a reasonable-looking fellow enough, and not so old either--forty, perhaps--perhaps less. "Have you no relation to whom you could send her?" he says at length, that sudden curiosity as to who Curzon may be prompting the question. "Some old lady? An aunt, for example?" "She doesn't seem to like aunts," says the professor, with deep dejection. "Small blame to her," says Hardinge, smoking vigorously. _"I've_ an aunt--but 'that's another story!' Well--haven't you a cousin then?--or something?" "I have a sister," says the professor slowly. "Married?" "A widow." ("Fusty old person, out somewhere in the wilds of Finchley," says Hardinge to himself. "Poor little girl--she won't fancy that either!") "Why not send her to you sister then?" says he aloud. "I'm not sure that she would like to have her," says the professor, with hesitation. "I confess I have been thinking it over for some days, but----" "But perhaps the fact of your ward's being an heiress----" begins Hardinge--throwing out a suggestion as it were--but is checked by something in the professor's face. "My sister is the Countess of Baring," says he gently. Hardinge's first thought is that the professor has gone out of his mind, and his second that he himself has accomplished that deed. He leans across the table. Surprise has deprived him of his usual good manners. "Lady Baring!--_your _sister!" says he. CHAPTER IX. "Your face, my Thane, is as a book, where men May read strange matters." "I see no reason why she shouldn't be," says the professor calmly--is there a faint suspicion of hauteur in his tone? "As we are on the subject of myself, I may as well tell you that my brother is Sir Hastings Curzon, of whom"--he turns back as if to take up some imaginary article from the floor--"you may have heard."