The two women were impressed. Putting the sketches aside, he began to
talk, of the many places he had seen. It was evident that he sought to
please. Susie began to understand how it was that, notwithstanding
his affectations, he had acquired so great an influence over the
undergraduates of Oxford. There was romance and laughter in his
conversation; and though, as Frank Hurrell had said, lacking in wit,
he made up for it with a diverting pleasantry that might very well have
passed for humour. But Susie, though amused, felt that this was not the
purpose for which she had asked him to come. Dr Porhoet had lent her
his entertaining work on the old alchemists, and this gave her a chance
to bring their conversation to matters on which Haddo was expert. She had
read the book with delight and, her mind all aflame with those strange
histories wherein fact and fancy were so wonderfully mingled, she was
eager to know more. The long toil in which so many had engaged, always to
lose their fortunes, often to suffer persecution and torture, interested
her no less than the accounts, almost authenticated, of those who had
succeeded in their extraordinary quest.
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