"He asked concerning the fort on the top, and gloom overspread his face when he heard that St. Andre had long been a famous _lycee_. I think he feared the neighbourhood of hosts of Jesuits. But I tranquillised his mind, telling him that he would find Professor Renard as free a thinker and as tolerant a listener as even my father. "Before long we stopped at the gate of Gobelet, and to my astonishment and delight my father opened it in person. He had even made toilet to the extent of a rough pilot suit and a pair of patent leather slippers. "Keller instinctively saluted as my father held out his hand. He seemed unaccountably shy of taking it, but at last he did and even shook it warmly if somewhat jerkily, 'after the English fashion' as he was eager to inform me afterwards--making a useful comparison of French and English characteristics between 'serrer la main' and hand-shaking. "I let the old gentlemen go on by themselves, sure that they would thus become better friends, and if you will believe me, Alida, they were not at the corner of the path leading to the Garden Cottage before they were deep in Arabic, and the next thing I knew was my father leading the Bey prisoner through the open windows of his study that he might show him some singular and infinitely precious manuscript. "Well, I left them till supper time. We are simple folk and sup early. Then I went into the study, where I had some difficulty in awakening them to a world where people washed hands before eating and drinking. "'Well, we must thresh that out again,' I heard my father say, and I am sure he never showed himself so much interested by any of my performances, not even when I brought home the gold medal for the first place in the _baccalaureat_. They could hardly let each other go, and if you, Alida, were present at that moment in the mind of the Bey, you were relegated to some distant hinterland, by me unexplored. "At supper, before Saunders McKie and the domestics I steered my barque with care. For the ears of Saunders were growing long and lop like a rabbit's, with sheer intensity of listening. Once or twice things became a little sultry, as when the Bey described the bannered procession he had seen at the station. "'Ah, politics,' said my father. 'I am glad they do not manifest over on this side of the water. White, red, or tricolour, it is all one to a man among his books.' "'Not to me!' said the Bey, somewhat explosively. "'Of course not--you are a soldier, and these things have been your life's business. But you must make allowances for a recluse and a scholar!' "I did not think my father could have been so tactful. "So _Salaam_, for to-night, dear lady! I kiss your golden feet." "_Tuesday._