"All the world will bless you! All women will be grateful as I am grateful--" "Ach!" he snapped with a sudden change of countenance. "I shall be von more name and date to make harter t'e student's lessons and longer t'e tables--t'at is gratitude! Vit' t'e vorld we haf at present no concern. For t'is, indeed, you bless me--t'at I am not a quack to make public an incomplete discofery, for ot'er quacks to do mischief. You are glad t'at it is vit' you alone I concern myself. But you are not grateful; you are happy because I say t'at you shall be yet more beautiful; t'at is not gratitude. You might--" At the eager shrillness of his voice I drew a step away. "Indeed I'm grateful, whether you believe it or not!" I cried. "You think all women so selfish! Of course I'm glad that I alone am in the secret, but you proposed it yourself, and I rejoice as much as you do that some day--by and by--other women will be happy as I am happy--" "Yes--by and by! You emphasize t'at," he snapped mockingly, but then he recovered himself and his queer new deference. "And you haf t'e right; I vish you to rechoice in your own lofeliness. Ve haf engaged toget'er in t'is great vork, and it is vell t'at we bot' haf our revards--I t'at I aggomblish somet'ing for t'e benefit of my kind, and you--since vomen cannot lofe t'eir kind, but only intifiduals--you haf t'e happy lofe t'at is necessary to a voman." His eyes rested on my ring. I couldn't tell him--proud as I am of it--that John had loved me before I ever heard of the Bacillus. But I could punish his gibes. "Oh, by the way--I'm not coming to-morrow," I said. "My Aunt is to give a tea." Strange to see him struggle with his disappointment like a grieving child! But he bravely rallied. "T'at is goot," he said, "you shall tell me v'at people t'ink of you. You vish to go about--to be admired; you vish to gif up science; not so?" "Oh, no! I couldn't be a doll, for men to look at and then tire of me. I must study the harder--to be worthy--" The look of his face, of the thin, straight-lipped mouth, the keen old eyes, stopped me. "You vill not gif up study now, at least," he sneered; "not until you haf t'e perfect beauty. You haf need of me." Prof. Darmstetter is so irritating! Why, he has just as much need of me! He himself said I was the best subject he could find for the experiment. But even if he had finished his work with the Bacillus, he'd rather teach me, a despised woman, all the science I could master than develop the budding talent of the brightest Columbia boy. The sight of my beauty is a joy to him. Really, I pity the poor man. He makes the great discovery when he's himself too old to profit by it; the Bacillus will not work against Nature. It has brought him only a hopeless longing--