Part 32

After breakfast the professor watched until he saw Hermione enter the conservatory, where she usually spent a part of the morning alone among the flowers; sometimes making an elaborate inspection of the plants she loved best, sometimes sitting for an hour or two with a book in some remote corner, among the giant tropical leaves and the bright-colored blossoms. She loved not only the flowers, but the warmth of the place, in the bitter winter weather.

Cutter entered with a supremely unconscious air, as though he believed there was no one in the conservatory. There was nothing professorial about his appearance, except his great spectacles, through which he gazed benignly at the luxuriant growth of plants, as he advanced, his hands in the pockets of his plaid shooting-coat. He was dressed as any other man might be in the country; he had selected an unostentatious plaid for the material of his clothes, and he wore a colored tie, which just showed beneath the wave of his thick beard. He trod slowly but firmly, putting his feet down as though prepared to prove his right to the ground he trod on.

"Oh! Are you here, Miss Carvel?" he exclaimed, as he caught sight of Hermione installed in a cane chair behind some plants. She was not much pleased at being disturbed, but she looked up with a slight smile, willing to be civil.

"Since you ask me, I am," she replied.

"Whereas if I had not asked you, you would have affected not to be here, you mean? How odd it is that just when one sees a person one should always ask them if one sees them or not! In this case, I suppose the pleasure of seeing you was so great that I doubted the evidence of my senses. Is that the way to turn a speech?"

"It is a way of turning one, certainly," answered Hermione. "There may be other ways. I have not much experience of people who turn speeches."

"I have had great experience of them," said the professor, "and I confess to you that I consider the practice of turning everything into compliment as a disagreeable and tiresome humbug."

"I was just thinking the same thing," said Hermione.

"Then we shall agree."

"Provided you practice what you preach, we shall."

"Did you ever know me to preach what I did not practice?" asked Cutter, with a smile of honest amusement.

"I have not known much of you, either in preaching or in practicing, as yet. We shall see."

"Shall I begin now?"

"If you like," answered the young girl.

"Which shall it be, preaching or practicing?"

"I should say that, as you have me entirely at your mercy, the opportunity is favorable for preaching."

"I would not make such an unfair use of my advantage," said the professor. "I detest preaching. In practice I never preach"----

"You are making too much conversation out of those two words," interrupted Hermione. "If I let you go on, you will be making puns upon them."

"You do not like puns?"

"I think nothing is more contemptible."

"Merely because that way of being funny is grown old-fashioned," said Cutter. "Fifty or sixty years ago, a hundred years ago, when a man wanted to be very bitingly sarcastic, he would compose a criticism upon his enemy which was only a long string of abominable puns; each pun was printed in italics. That was thought to be very funny."

"You would not imitate that sort of fun, would you?" asked Hermione.

"No. You would think it no joke if I did," answered Cutter, gravely.

"I am not going to laugh," said Hermione. But she laughed, nevertheless.

"Pray do not laugh if you do not want to," said Cutter. "I am used to being thought dull. Your gravity would not wound me though I were chief clown to the whole universe, and yours were the only grave face in the world. By the by, you are laughing, I see. I am much obliged for the appreciation. Shall I go on being funny?"

"Not if you can help it," said Hermione.

"Do you insinuate that I am naturally an object for laughter?" asked Cutter, smiling. "Do you mean that 'I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men'? If so, I may yet make you spend a pleasant hour in despite of yourself, without any great effort on my own part. I will sit here, and you shall laugh at me. The morning will pass very agreeably."

"I should think you might find something better to do," returned Hermione. "But they say that small things amuse great minds."