Hardinge is hardly gone, before another—­a far heavier—­step sounds in the passage outside the professor’s door.  It is followed by a knock, almost insolent in its loudness and sharpness.

“What a hole you do live in,” says Sir Hastings, stepping into the room, and picking his way through the books and furniture as if afraid of being tainted by them.  “Bless me! what strange beings you scientists are.  Rags and bones your surroundings, instead of good flesh and blood.  Well, Thaddeus—­hardly expected 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 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——­