Ruth could not restrain a start of surprise and he looked at her, his dark eyes wrinkling with mirth. “So you know about the evil eye?” he questioned. “No, I don’t. Only I suppose the phrase startled me. What really is the matter?” “I don’t know and neither do the doctors apparently; that’s why I call it the evil eye. I came home from the show that night and went to sleep like a good Christian with a quiet conscience, but when I woke I found that my right leg was paralysed to the knee. It was the dark of the moon that night. I know because I always think in more or less almanacal terms—that would be when the evil eye would be most effective, you know; and I’m waiting for the full moon to see if I will not be cured as mysteriously as I have been afflicted.” Nels and Dorothy were listening with puzzled eyes, not quite knowing whether Professor Pendragon was jesting or in earnest. “You mean all maniacal terms, if you believe such rubbish,” said Nels, “and you need a brain specialist, not a doctor.” “I think that’s our tea at the door, if you’ll please open it for me, Nels, and I promise not to talk about the evil eye in the presence of such moderns as you and Miss Winslow again.” “Why don’t you include Ruth in that?” asked Dorothy, as Nels rose to open the door. “Because Miss Mayfield is not a modern at all; she belongs to the dark middle ages.” “I’m afraid I’m a bit superstitious,” admitted Ruth, and then hoping to test his sincerity, for he had spoken throughout with a smile, and also to throw, if possible, some light on the uncanny suspicions that troubled her—“Even if you did believe in the evil eye, who would want to harm you?” “Please do stop,” said Dorothy. “You’re spoiling my tea with your gruesome talk. Where’s the picture that Nels was to point out and advise you about hanging?” “That is, perhaps, a more wholesome topic, but we were only joking, Miss Mayfield and I.” “I’ve found the picture already,” exclaimed Nels—“the one with the fat Bacchus—you see I picked it out of all the others—I don’t blame you for buying it; it’s delightful humour, depicting Bacchus as a modern business man, fat and bald, yet clad in a leopard skin with grape vines on his head, and tearing through the forest with a slim, young nymph in his arms—it’s grotesque and fascinating.” “I thought you’d approve,” said Professor Pendragon. “Now where shall we hang it?” “It’s all right where it is, unless you have a larger picture to hang there.”