Brenton did sit down, the while he suppressed a vague question regarding the filial nature of the word _absurdities_. Then he yielded to the merriment in Olive's eyes, and laughed outright and boyishly. "I've heard something of the sort already, Miss Keltridge," he confessed. "What was it, this time?" For an instant, Olive paused, astonished at the change which had come over her companion. His clerical veneer had fallen from him; the man beneath was singularly human, likable, and as simple as Dolph Dennison himself. "This time? I went to see, went to the laboratory, though the maid had told me he wasn't in there. She had knocked twice; then she had opened the door to look in. At first, I agreed with her. Then I heard a little noise, over in a corner behind the table. There on the floor, the flat floor, sat my father, sixty-five years old. His hair was all on end, and his cheek was smudged with something yellow, and he was as happy as a baby in a sand pile. Doing?" Olive made a helpless little gesture. "How should I know? I'm no student of germs. He had a row of glass pans in front of him, with hideous messes in them, and he appeared to be sounding the depths of iniquity in them with a small glass divining rod." Then their eyes met above the finished story, and together the two of them burst out laughing, like a pair of merry children. "You think he will become visible, in course of time?" Brenton asked her. She shook her head, as she laughed again. "I trust so, Mr. Brenton; but, of course, nobody ever can predict. He knows you are here. At least," swiftly she amended her phrase; "he did know it. How long the fact stays by him is another question. If you were only a germ, now----" She surveyed him dubiously. "You wouldn't care to go into the laboratory?" she asked him. A sudden light flashed up into Scott Brenton's face, the dazzle of a flame long buried, never entirely to be extinguished. "If I might! Wouldn't it disturb him, though?" But Olive had seen the lighting of the quiet face, and her curiosity was aroused. What was there in the mere mention of a laboratory that could so transform a humdrum little rector into a thing of fire? That it was the laboratory, Olive never stopped to question. She was far too sane, too used to the tame-tabby-cat propensities of youthful rectors, to imagine for a moment that the enthusiasm had come out of the chance to escape from her society. Therefore she decided that, for the present, she would keep this particular rector to herself, on the off-chance of discovering the real source of his enthusiasm. Her knowledge of her father's habits assured her, beyond doubt, that later on, much later, there would still be plenty of time for the laboratory visit. Accordingly, she answered Brenton's question with flat discouragement. "Probably," she told him quite uncompromisingly. "However, it is good for him to be disturbed, once in a while, even if he doesn't always take it so very nicely."