ed at last, "of the matter upon which
I spoke to you last night?"

She said nothing, but walked by his side with her eyes averted and her
face aslant.

"I would not hurry you unduly," he continued. "I know that it is a
matter which can scarcely be decided off-hand. In my own case, it cost
me some thought before I ventured to make the suggestion. I am not an
emotional man, but I am conscious in your presence of the great
evolutionary instinct which makes either sex the complement of the
other."

"You believe in love, then?" she asked, with a twinkling, upward glance.

"I am forced to."

"And yet you can deny the soul?"

"How far these questions are psychic and how far material is still sub
judice," said the Professor, with an air of toleration. "Protoplasm
may prove to be the physical basis of love as well as of life."

"How inflexible you are!" she exclaimed; "you would draw love down to
the level of physics."

"Or draw physics up to the level of love."

"Come, that is much better," she cried, with her sympathetic laugh.
"That is really very pretty, and puts science in quite a delightful
light."

Her eyes sparkled, and she tossed her chin with the pretty, wilful air
of a woman who is mistress of the situation.

"I have reason to believe," said the Professor, "that my position here
will prove to be only a stepping-stone to some wider scene of
scientific activity. Yet, even here, my chair brings me in some
fifteen hundred pounds a year, which is supplemented by a few hundreds
from my books. I should therefore be in a position to provide you with
those comforts to which you are accustomed. So much for my pecuniary
position. As to my constitution, it has always been sound. I have
never suffered from any illness in my life, save fleeting attacks of
cephalalgia, the result of too prolonged a stimulation of the centres
of cerebration. My father and mother had no sign of any morbid
diathesis, but I will not conceal from you that my grandfather was
afflicted with podagra."

Mrs. O'James looked startled.

"Is that very serious?" she asked.

"It is gout," said the Professor.

"Oh, is that all? It sounded much worse than that."

"It is a grave taint, but I trust that I shall not be a victim to
atavism. I have laid these facts before you because they are factors
which cannot be overlooked in forming your decision. May I ask now
whether you see your way to accepting my proposal?"

He paused in his