talk
over her friend's schemes and fancies with him.

The doctor began without any roundabout prelude.

"I want to confer with you about our friend Lurida. Does she tell you
all her plans and projects?"

"Why, as to that, doctor, I can hardly say, positively, but I do not
believe she keeps back anything of importance from me. I know what she
has been busy with lately, and the queer idea she has got into her
head. What do you think of the Tarantula business? She has shown you the
paper, she has written, I suppose."

"Indeed she has. It is a very curious case she has got hold of, and I do
not wonder at all that she should have felt convinced that she had come
at the true solution of the village riddle. It may be that this young
man is the same person as the boy mentioned in the Italian medical
journal. But it is very far from clear that he is so. You know all her
reasons, of course, as you have read the story. The times seem to agree
well enough. It is easy to conceive that Ch might be substituted for K
in the report. The singular solitary habits of this young man entirely
coincide with the story. If we could only find out whether he has any
of those feelings with reference to certain colors, we might guess with
more chance of guessing right than we have at present. But I don't see
exactly how we are going to submit him to examination on this point. If
he were only a chemical compound, we could analyze him. If he were only
a bird or a quadruped, we could find out his likes and dislikes. But
being, as he is, a young man, with ways of his own, and a will of
his own, which he may not choose to have interfered with, the problem
becomes more complicated. I hear that a newspaper correspondent has
visited him so as to make a report to his paper,--do you know what he
found out?"

"Certainly I do, very well. My brother has heard his own story, which
was this: He found out he had got hold of the wrong person to interview.
The young gentleman, he says, interviewed him, so that he did not
learn much about the Sphinx. But the newspaper man told Willy about the
Sphinx's library and a cabinet of coins he had; and said he should make
an article out of him, anyhow. I wish the man would take himself off. I
am afraid Lurida's love of knowledge will get her into trouble!"

"Which of the men do you wish would take himself off?"

"I was thinking of the newspaper man."

She blushed a little as she said, "I can't help feeling a strange