“She doesn’t seem to like aunts,” says the professor, with deep dejection.

“Small blame to her,” says Hardinge, smoking vigorously. "I’ve an aunt—­but ‘that’s another story!’ Well—­haven’t you a cousin then?—­or something?”

“I have a sister,” says the professor slowly.

“Married?”

“A widow.”

("Fusty old person, out somewhere in the wilds of Finchley,” says Hardinge to himself.  “Poor little girl—­she won’t fancy that either!”)

“Why not send her to you sister then?” says he aloud.

“I’m not sure that she would like to have her,” says the professor, with hesitation.  “I confess I have been thinking it over for some days, but——­”

“But perhaps the fact of your ward’s being an heiress——­” begins Hardinge—­throwing out a suggestion as it were—­but is checked by something in the professor’s face.

“My sister is the Countess of Baring,” says he gently.

Hardinge’s first thought is that the professor has gone out of his mind, and his second that he himself has accomplished that deed.  He leans across the table.  Surprise has deprived him of his usual good manners.

“Lady Baring!—­your sister!” says he.

CHAPTER IX.

    “Your face, my Thane, is as a book, where men
    May read strange matters.”

“I see no reason why she shouldn’t be,” says the professor calmly—­is there a faint suspicion of hauteur in his tone?  “As we are on the subject of myself, I may as well tell you that my brother is Sir Hastings Curzon, of whom”—­he turns back as if to take up some imaginary article from the floor—­“you may have heard.”

“Sir Hastings!” Mr. Hardinge leans back in his chair and gives way to thought.  This quiet, hard-working student—­this man whom he had counted as a nobody—­the brother of that disreputable Hastings Curzon!  “As good as got the baronetcy,” says he still thinking.  “At the rate Sir Hastings is going he can’t possibly last for another twelvemonth, and here is this fellow living in these dismal lodgings with twenty thousand a year before his eyes.  A lucky thing for him that the estates are so strictly entailed.  Good heavens! to think of a man with all that almost in his grasp being happy in a coat that must have been built in the Ark, and caring for nothing on earth but the intestines of frogs and such-like abominations.”

“You seem surprised again,” says the professor, somewhat satirically.

“I confess it,” says Hardinge.

“I can’t see why you should be.”

"I do,” says Hardinge drily.  “That you,” slowly, "you should be Sir Hastings’ brother!  Why——­”

“No more!” interrupts the professor sharply.  He lifts his hand.  “Not another word.  I know what you are going to say.  It is one of my great troubles, that I always know what people are going to say when they mention him.  Let him alone, Hardinge.”