we were going out. "You're my brother, and I want you to help me. There are two reasons why you can talk to her better than I can: you've got brains and a tongue in your head; and you're not in love with her. You can find out whether she cares for me, and whether—there's any other fellow in the case, you know. It isn't that I believe there is; but I want to be certain that there isn't; see?"
I am not a John Alden, though Lord Cedarcliffe may be a Miles Standish. But, to make him easy, I said I would see about it.
V.
As regards the family romance, I have lost a good many entertaining details from mere neglect in writing them down at the time. But it will be a long time before I forget the afternoon my cousin Sinfire spent with me in the laboratory, last week.
It was partly purpose and partly accident. John had asked me to talk with her in his behalf, and I was not averse from fathoming her mystery, if I could; but I doubt whether anything would have been done if I hadn't happened to mention Sâprani. The Indian name caught her ear, and she began to ask me questions. In ten minutes I had her consumed with curiosity. At first, I had no intention of admitting her to the sacred precincts of the laboratory. Indeed, no human being has crossed that mystic threshold since I established my Lares and Penates there; and least of all did I contemplate ever entertaining a woman.
However, I reflected that, if I wanted to get anything out of her, there could be no place better suited to that operation than my laboratory. The environment would kindle her imagination, and the disclosures I could regale her with would put her in a mood to render a return. I knew her general character tolerably well by this time, although the particulars of her experience were still as much an enigma as ever; and I thought I could touch the springs that would loosen her reserve. Moreover, I am by nature romantic (though the world may think otherwise), and I could imagine a very interesting scene taking place in the alchemist's cave between the magician and the maiden!
At any rate, when I had worked her up to the proper pitch of entreaty and impatience, I allowed her to wring from me a grudging consent to receive her in the penetralia at a certain hour. I would have made that hour midnight, had not my regard for conventional propriety forbidden. But the conformation of the place enabled me to make it appear quite as impressive at one hour of the day as at another. I appointed three o'clock in the afternoon; and she was to come at that time, secretly and alone.
