“That’s just what I say.  If one can not be exact, why talk at all?” Miss Reynier caught it up with high glee.  She had a foreign accent, and an occasional twist of words which proved her to be neither American nor Englishwoman.  “That’s my principle,” she insisted.  “Leave other people in undisturbed possession of their hobbies, especially in conversation, and don’t say anything if you can’t say what you mean.  But then, you won’t talk about your hobby; and if I have no one to inform me, how can I be exact?  But I’m the meekest person alive; I’m so ready to learn.”

Mr. Van Camp surveyed first the bantering, alluring eyes, then turned his gaze upon the soft luxuries about them.

“Are you ready to turn this bijou dream into a laboratory smelling of alcohol and fish?  Are you ready to spend hours wading in mudbanks after specimens, or scratching in the sand under the broiling sun?  Science does not consult comfort.”

Miss Reynier’s expression of quizzical teasing changed to one of rather thoughtful inquiry, as if she were estimating the man behind the scientist.  Van Camp was of the lean, angular type, like Jim Hambleton.  He was also very manly and wholesome, but even in his conventional evening clothes there was something about him that was unconventional—­a protesting, untamed element of character that resisted all rules except those prescribed by itself.  He puzzled her now, as he had often puzzled her before; but if she made fun of his hobbies, she had no mind to make fun of the man himself.  A cheerful, intelligent smile finally ended her contemplating moment.

“Oh, no; no digging in the sand for me.  I’ll take what science I get in another way—­put up in predigested packages or bottled—­any way but the fishy way.  But please don’t give me up.  You shed a good deal of light on my mental darkness last winter in Egypt, and maybe I can improve still more.”  She suddenly turned with friendly, confidential manner toward Aleck, not waiting for replies to her remarks.  “It’s good to see you again!  And I like it here better than in Egypt, don’t you?  Don’t you think this apartment jolly?”

The shaded lamps made a pretty light over Miss Reynier’s cream-colored silk flounces, over the delicate lace on her waist, over her glossy dark hair and spirited face.  As Aleck contemplated that face, with its eager yet modest and womanly gaze, and the noble outline of her figure, he thought, with an unwonted flowering of imagination, that she was not unlike the Diana of classic days.  “A domestic Diana,” he added in his mind.  “She may love the woods and freedom, but she will always return to the hearth.”

Aloud he said:  “If you will permit me, Miss Reynier, I would like to inform you at once of the immediate object of my visit here.  You must be well aware—­” At this point Mr. Van Camp, who, true to his nature, was looking squarely in the face of his companion, of necessity allowed himself to be interrupted by Miss Reynier’s lifted hand.  She was looking beyond her visitor through the drawing-room door.