ed her with an almost irresistible
impulse to get up and kiss him. "You couldn't honestly do anything else,
and I know the shortest way to make you hate me would be to ask you to
do that something else. But still," he went on, thrusting his hands into
the pockets of his Norfolk jacket, "I do think I have a sort of right
to have some sort of explanation, and with your permission I shall just
ask him for one."

"For goodness' sake, don't do that, Mark--don't!" she pleaded. "You
might as well go and ask a Jewish Rabbi why he wouldn't let his daughter
marry a Christian. Wise and clever as he is in other things, poor Dad is
simply a fanatic in this, and--well, if he did condescend to explain,
I'm afraid you might mistake what he would think the correct scientific
way of putting it, for an insult, and I couldn't bear to think of you
quarrelling. You know you're the only two people in the world I--I--Oh
dear, what _shall_ I do!"

It was at this point that the Law of Natural Selection stepped in.
Natural laws of any sort have very little respect for the refinements of
what mortals are pleased to call their philosophy. Professor Marmion was
a very great man--some men said he was the greatest scientist of his
age--but at this moment he was but as a grain of sand among the wheels
of the mighty machine which grinds out human and other destinies.

Commander Merrill took a couple of long, swift strides towards the chair
in which Nitocris was leaning back with her hands pressed to her eyes.
He picked her up bodily, as he might have picked a child of seven up,
put her protesting hands aside, and slowly and deliberately kissed her
three times squarely on the lips as if he meant it; and the third time
her lips moved too. Then he whispered:

"Good-bye, dear, for the present, at any rate!"

After which he deposited her tenderly in the chair again, and, with just
one last look, turned and walked with quick, angry strides across the
lawn and round the semi-circular carriage-drive, saying some things to
himself between his clenched teeth, and thinking many more.

A few yards outside the gate he came face to face with the Professor.

"Good-morning, sir," said Merrill, with a motion of his hand towards his
hat.

"Oh, good-morning, Mr Merrill," replied the Professor a little stiffly,
for relations between them had been strained for some considerable time
now. "I presume you have been to the house. I am sorry that you did not
find me at