ege of the
libraries, the laboratories, and lecture-rooms.

Across Litton's field of view passed a figure that caught his eye.
Absently he followed it as it enlarged with approach. He realized that
it was Prof. Martha Binley, Ph.D., who taught Greek over there in the
Annex.

"How well she is looking!" he mused.

The very thought startled him, as if some one had spoken unexpectedly.
He wondered that he had noticed her appearance. After the window-sill
blotted her from view he still wondered, dallying comfortably with the
reverie.

IV

There was a knock at his door and in response to his call the door
opened--and she stood there.

"May I come in?" she said.

"Certainly."

Before he knew it some impulse of gallantry hoisted him to his feet. He
lifted a bundle of archeological reviews from a chair close to his desk
and waited until she sat down. The chair was nearer his than he
realized, and as Professor Binley dropped into it she was so close that
Professor Litton pushed his spectacles up to his forehead.

It was the first time she had seen his eyes except through glasses
darkly. She noted their color instantly, woman-like. They were not dull,
either, as she had imagined. A cloying fragrance saluted his nostrils.

"What are the flowers you are wearing, may I ask?" he said. He hardly
knew a harebell from a peony.

"These are hyacinths," she said. "One of the girls gave them to me. I
just pinned them on."

"Ah, hyacinths!" he murmured. "Ah yes; I've read so much about them. So
these are hyacinths! Such a pretty story the Greeks had. You remember
it, no doubt?"

She said she did; but, schoolmaster that he was, he went right on:

"Apollo loved young Hyacinthus--or Huakinthos, as the Greeks called
it--and was teaching him to throw the discus, when a jealous breeze blew
the discus aside. It struck the boy in the forehead. He fell dead, and
from his blood this flower sprang. The petals, they said, were marked
with the letters Ai, Ai!--Alas! Alas! And the poet Moschus, you
remember, in his 'Lament for Bion,' says:

"Nun huakinthe lalei ta sa grammata kai pleon aiai!

"Or, as I once Englished it--let me see, I put it into hexameters--it
was a long while ago. Ah, I have it!"

And with the orotund notes a poet assumes when reciting his own words,
he intoned:

"Now, little hyacinth, babble thy syllables--louder yet--Aiai!
Whimper with all of thy petals; a beautiful singer has perished."

Pro