"Yes, I am the successor of poor old Professor Raymond--the new curator of the Headley Museum." "Hurray!" cried Guest, snatching up a great bird-skin by the beak and waving it round his head till he wrung its neck right off. "Oh, bother! Three cheers for Professor Stratton! Bravo! Why, you'll be an awful scientific swell. Malcolm, old chap, I am glad," he continued, flinging the choice and valuable specimen up on to a bookcase, and grasping his friend's hand. "You shall dine with me to-night, and we'll pour out champagne libations to the gods." "Sit down and be quiet," said Stratton gravely. "No, old fellow, I can't dine with you to-night; I've something particular to do." "Come and have a big lunch, then; we must go mad somehow. Why, its glorious, old man! They've had big, scientific, bald-headed old buffers there before--regular old dry-as-dusts. Come on; you can't and I can't work to-day." "Sit down, I tell you, and be serious. I want to talk to you." "All right--I may smoke?" "Smoke? Yes." "But are you sure you can't come?" said Guest, taking out a pipe. "Quite. I have made up my mind to go to Bourne Square to-night." "To the admiral's?" cried Guest, starting, and changing colour a little. "Yes; there is an invitation just come for me to go to Miss Jerrold's to-morrow night and take you." "Indeed!" said Guest eagerly. "She says in a postscript that the ladies will be there." "Well?" said Guest uneasily, and beginning to smoke very hard. "Don't you understand?" "Eh? No." "Then I must speak plainly, old fellow. For a year before they went out to Switzerland we were there a great deal, and met them after." Guest nodded and his pipe did not seem to draw. "We have met them often during these three months that they have been back." Guest laughed and struck a match. His pipe was out. "Well, have you not seen anything?" "Yes," said Guest huskily. "I felt that you must have seen it, old fellow. I have no secrets from you. I have loved her from the first time I saw her at Miss Jerrold's, and it has gone on growing till at times I have been almost in despair. For how could I speak, poor and hard up as I was--just a student, earning two or three hundred a year?" "Always seemed attentive enough," said Guest, looking away as his friend paced the room with growing excitement. "Perhaps; but I have schooled myself to hide it all, and to act as a gentleman should toward Sir Mark. It would have been dishonourable to act otherwise than as an ordinary friend of the family." "I suppose so," said Guest dismally. "And now?" "My position is changed. Poverty does not bar the way, and, feeling this, I cannot trust myself. I cannot go and meet her to-morrow evening at her aunt's without seeing the admiral first, and speaking out to him like a man." "And--and--you really--care for her so much, old fellow?" said Guest hoarsely, and still in trouble with his pipe, which refused to draw.