“Dear Mother, let us defer questions till after dinner! Miss Diana! To your health!” And he held up his glass of champagne towards her. “You are looking remarkably well!--and both my mother and I are glad that the air of Switzerland agrees with you!” Half pleased, half puzzled, Diana smiled her recognition of the friendly toast, but in her own mind, wondered what it all meant? Why did dear old Madame Dimitrius stare at her so much? Why did even Vasho, the negro servant, roll the whites of his eyes at her as though she were somebody he had never seen before? And taking these things into account, why did Dimitrius himself maintain such an indifferent and uninterested demeanour? Nevertheless, whatever the circumstances might portend, she was more disposed to mirth than gravity, and the delicious _timbre_ of her voice made music at table, both in speaking and laughter,--the music of mingled wit and eloquence, rare enough in a man, but still rarer in a woman. Very few women have the art of conversing intelligently, and at a dinner nowadays the chief idea seems to be to keep on “safe” ground, avoiding every subject of any real interest. But Diana was not particular in this regard,--she talked, and talked well. On this evening she seemed to throw herself with greater zest into the always for her congenial task of keeping her mysterious “employer” and his mother amused,--and Dimitrius himself began to feel something of the glamour of a woman’s fascination against which he had always been as he boasted--“spirit-proof.” His was a curious and complex nature. For years and years, ever since his early boyhood, he had devoted himself to the indefatigable study of such arts and sciences as are even now regarded as only “possible,” but “non-proven,”--and he had cut himself off from all the ordinary ambitions as well as from the social customs and conventions of the world, in order to follow up a certain clue which his researches had placed in his hands. Though his ultimate intention was to benefit humanity he was so fearful of miscalculating one line of the mathematical problem he sought to solve, that for the time being, humanity weighed as nothing in his scale. He would admit of no obstacle in his path, and though he was not a cruel man, if he had found that he would need a hundred human “subjects” to work upon, he would have killed them all without compunction, had killing been necessary to the success of his experiments. And yet,--he had a heart, which occasionally gave him trouble as contending with his brain,--for the brain was cool and calculating, and the heart was warm and impulsive. He had never actually shunned women, because they too, as well as men, were needful points of study,--but most of the many he had met incurred his dislike or derision because of what he considered their unsettled fancies and general “vagueness.” His mother he adored; but to no other woman had he ever accorded an atom of really deep or well-considered homage.