THE EQUINOX
she forgot the obvious corollary of removing the flower from
her dress.
She was nestled in the arm-chair when the old analyst
tiptoed into the room and clapped his hands over her eyes.
“ Who is it?” said he gaily.
"Why, you're
Jack
from Alaska,
of
course,"
she
answered, laughing.
“ Guess again ?" And the child guessed
the German Emperor, and Lewis Waller, and everyone else
she could think of.
“Wrong.”
“Wrong.”
“Wrong.”
"Why,“
she
cried, jumping
up
and
facing him,
“ it's
Professor Zircon!
The last person in the world I should
have expected to find here ! "
She threw her arms round his neck and called him a
“ dear silly.”
”Well, what's the news, child ?"
" No news.
I'm so sorry the chief's dead."
“ Doesn’t matter to me.
What a pretty flower in your
dress! "
She had an instinct of sudden and terrible danger; and
lied instantly.
" I bought it for your buttonhole."
And she
fastened it there.
Professor Zircon called her a sweet, thoughtful fairy, and
gave her a kiss.
Such a shudder ran through him as rarely
stirred his veins.
He had some flash of memory, of Judas,
perhaps, signalled across the forty years since he had heard
the legend of the Gospels at his mother's knee.
“ But there is news!” he added gaily.
“ I'm going to
show you my great discovery.
I’ve found out how to make
96