'"
And he chuckled and rubbed his lean hands together as I had so often seen
him do.
The thought flashed across my mind that this extraordinary man meditated a
proposal of marriage, but I dismissed the notion as ridiculous.
The Professor leaned forward and, fixing me with his eye, spoke in a
hoarse whisper, tense with excitement:--
"Mees Veenship, I am a biologist; you are a voman, creature of Nature,
yearning for perfection after your kind. I--I can gife it you. You can
trust me; I am ready. I can gif you your vish, t'e vish of efery normal
voman. Science--t'at is I--can make you t'e most beautiful being in t'e
vorld!"
Another Sunday school lesson! Miss Coleman and her unforgotten lecture
upon beauty flashed upon my mind. But this man was promising me more than
she had done, and his every word was measured. What was the mystery? What
had he to say to me?
"T'e most beautiful--voman--in t'e vorld," he went on in a slow, cadenced
whisper. "Do you vish it?"
His glittering eyes held mine again. No, he was not jesting at my expense;
rather he seemed waiting with anxiety for me to make some decision upon
which much depended.
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