to see _me_ here, eh?"

"You want me?" says the professor. "Don't sit down there--those notes
are loose; sit here."

"Faith, you've guessed it, my dear fellow, I _do_ want you, and
most confoundedly badly this time. Your ward, now, Miss Wynter!
Deuced pretty little girl, isn't she, and good form too? Wonderfully
bred--considering."

"I don't suppose you have come here to talk about Miss Wynter's good
manners."

"By Jove! I have though. You see, Thaddeus, I've about come to
the length of my tether, and--er--I'm thinking of turning over
a new leaf--reforming, you know--settling down--going in for
dulness--domesticity, and all the other deuced lot of it."

"It is an excellent resolution, that might have been arrived at years
ago with greater merit," says the professor.

"A preacher and a scientist in one! Dear sir, you go beyond the
possible," says Sir Hastings, with a shrug. "But to business. See here,
Thaddeus. I have told you a little of my plans, now hear the rest. I
intend to marry--an heiress, _bien entendu_--and it seems to me that
your ward, Miss Wynter, will suit me well enough."

"And Miss Wynter, will you suit _her_ well enough?"

"A deuced sight too well, I should say. Why, the girl is of no family to
signify, whereas the Curzons----It will be a better match for her than
in her wildest dreams she could have hoped for."

"Perhaps, in her wildest dreams, she hoped for a good man, and one who
could honestly love her."

"Pouf! You are hardly up to date, my dear fellow. Girls, now-a-days, are
wise enough to know they can't have everything, and she will get a good
deal. Title, position----I say, Thaddeus, what I want of you is
to--er--to help me in this matter--to--crack me up a bit, eh?--to--_you_
know."

The professor is silent, more through disgust than want of anything to
say. Staring at the man before him, he knows he is loathsome to
him--loathsome, and his own brother! This man, who with some of the best
blood of England in his veins, is so far, far below the standard that
marks the gentleman. Surely vice is degrading in more ways than one. To
the professor, Sir Hastings, with his handsome, dissipated face, stands
out, tawdry, hideous, vulgar--why, every word he says is tinged with
coarseness; and yet, what a pretty boy he used to be, with his soft,
sunny hair and laughing eyes----

"You will help me, eh?" persists Sir Hastings, with his little dry
chronic cough, that seems to shake his whole fr