me to take a chair. If I were
a nasty stuffy mummy, now, you would be embracing me by, this time.
Don't you know that I have come to dinner, you silly man?" and she
tapped him playfully with her closed fan.

"I have had dinner," said Braddock, egotistic as usual.

"No, you have not." Mrs. Jasher spoke positively, and pointed to a
small tray of untouched food on the side table. "You have not even had
luncheon. You must live on air, like a chameleon--or on love, perhaps,"
she ended in a significantly tender tone.

But she might as well have spoken to the granite image of Horus in the
corner. Braddock merely rubbed his chin and stared harder than ever at
the glittering visitor.

"Dear me!" he said innocently. "I must have forgotten to eat.
Lamplight!" he looked round vaguely. "Of course, I remember lighting the
lamps. Time has gone by very rapidly. I am really hungry." He paused to
make sure, then repeated his remark in a more positive manner. "Yes, I
am very hungry, Mrs. Jasher." He looked at her as though she had just
entered. "Of course, Mrs. Jasher. Do you wish to see me about anything
particular?"

The widow frowned at his inattention, and then laughed. It was
impossible to be angry with this dreamer.

"I have come to dinner, Professor. Do try and wake up; you are half
asleep and half starved, too, I expect."

"I certainly feel unaccountably hungry," admitted Braddock cautiously.

"Unaccountably, when you have eaten nothing since breakfast. You weird
man, I believe you are a mummy yourself."

But the Professor had again returned to examine the scarabeus, this time
with a powerful magnifying glass.

"It certainly belongs to the twentieth dynasty," he murmured, wrinkling
his brows.

Mrs. Jasher stamped and flirted her fan pettishly. The creature's soul,
she decided, was certainly not in his body, and until it came back he
would continue to ignore her. With the annoyance of a woman who is
not getting her own way, she leaned back in Braddock's one comfortable
chair--which she had unerringly selected--and examined him intently.
Perhaps the gossips were correct, and she was trying to imagine what
kind of a husband he would make. But whatever might be her thoughts, she
eyed Braddock as earnestly as Braddock eyed the scarabeus.

Outwardly the Professor did not appear like the savant he was reported
to be. He was small of stature, plump of body, rosy as a little Cupid,
and extraordinarily youthful, considering