We had tea. I listened to their talk and said very little myself. It was pleasant to sit back in a chair and, without any effort at all, to add large fragments to my scanty collection of facts about Terrington. She asked him most of the questions I had always wanted to ask him, and he answered them all. He told her, for instance, that his father had been a country parson, and that his mother had died at his birth. He told her also that the total amount he earned was two hundred pounds a year, and that he lived on it. She was astonished. "But of course you will earn a lot of money some day," she said, with vague comfort; and he answered: "I don't want to make a lot of money. I admit that two hundred isn't enough, but I don't want a lot. If I could get two hundred and fifty or three hundred I'd be perfectly satisfied and never want any more." "You couldn't marry on that," she said. And he replied: "I don't want to marry." "You might do some day." "No." "How can you be certain?" "I have my work, and it takes up so much of my time that it wouldn't be fair to any woman to marry her." "She mightn't let it take up so much of your time." "Then it wouldn't be fair to my work." "I see.... You feel it as a sort of priesthood, with a vow of celibacy attached?" He thought for a moment and then answered: "I don't know--maybe I _do_ feel that. I don't very often think about it." But the oddest thing was yet to come. About five o'clock the tousled head of the laboratory-boy intruded itself round the corner of the door. He was a rough-mannered youngster, and, ignoring the presence of visitors, he boldly asked if he could go home. "I've cleaned all the cages," he said, "and I've fed your mice and Mr. Hensler's cats." The permission was given him and he withdrew. But I could see instantly that the matter would not be allowed to end there. As soon as he had gone Mrs. Severn exclaimed: "I say, what's all this about cats and mice and cages? Do you keep a menagerie?" Terrington smiled. "No--only what you said--cats and mice and cages. Oh, and a few rats also, I believe." "But what do you have them for?" "We--we need them, you know." "For your work?" "Yes." "You mean you----" The blood rushed to her face and she bit her lip. "Vivisection," she said slowly, after a pause. Then she added: "It's only a word after all--and why should one be hypnotized by a word? I'd like to see your Chamber of Horrors. Will you take me now?" I tried valiantly to signal him to make an excuse, but he didn't or wouldn't see. He was so transparently honest with her. He replied: "Certainly, if you're really interested. But you'll not find it at all horrible--only just a trifle smelly."