liberty of ordering it,
Tom."

"You took no liberties at all--you merely assumed your privileges.
Tut-tut! Tea. You women, with all your notions and your injurious
habits--how very delightful it is to be near you!"

"To hear you talk, Tom, how could _anyone_ suspect that you were a man
of principles!" cried Miss Bancroft. "How could anyone dream that you
were hard, and austere and--and unimaginative!" He looked at her in
mild astonishment.

He was a small old man, rather delicate in build, with the blunt broad
hands of a worker, and a high, smooth, massive forehead, from which his
perfectly white hair fell back, long and almost childishly soft and
fine. His eyes, set deep under the sharply defined bone of his
projecting brow, wore the gentle, far-away expression noticeable in
many near-sighted people; but his chin contradicted their softness, and
there was a hint of obstinacy in his close-set mouth and rather long
upper lip. He was dressed negligently, and indeed almost shabbily, and
he made no apologies for his appearance; since he never gave a thought
to it himself, he could not consider what other people might think of
it. His greatest hobby, lingering with him from earlier years, was
chemistry, and he spent virtually all his time in the laboratory which
he had fitted up in one of the odd towers that decorated his house.
His coat and trousers would have given a far less observant person than
Sherlock Holmes a clue to this favorite occupation of his, stained and
burned as they were with acids.

"Do you eat your _dinner_ in those clothes?" demanded Miss Bancroft.

"Why? What's the matter with them? Why not eat dinner in 'em? My
dear Elizabeth, surely at this late date you haven't taken it into your
head to reform my habits?"

"I don't know but that I have," replied Miss Bancroft with a touch of
grimness.

"Is that your ulterior motive? I suspected it. Tell me what you meant
when you accused me just now of being hard and austere and
unimaginative. Why unimaginative?"

"No really intelligent woman would ever try to explain anything so
subtle to a man. I mean that you are unimaginative because you allow
yourself to be rigid----"

"Rigid? Rigid about what?"

"About your principles. I like you, Tom--you know how much. I admire
you more than any man I have ever known, and I have known a good many
remarkable men. But one thing I cannot forgive you is your principles."

"My principles? When d