"Partly because of his health," she answered, "but he is going to
prepare a series of lectures, I understand. He says that in the crude
and uncultivated mentalities of our--"
"Here he is now," interrupted Phil, as the distinguished guest of the
Cross-Triangle appeared, coming slowly toward them.
Professor Everard Charles Parkhill looked the part to which, from his
birth, he had been assigned by his over-cultured parents. His slender
body, with its narrow shoulders and sunken chest, frail as it was,
seemed almost too heavy for his feeble legs. His thin face, bloodless
and sallow, with a sparse, daintily trimmed beard and weak watery eyes,
was characterized by a solemn and portentous gravity, as though,
realizing fully the profound importance of his mission in life, he could
permit no trivial thought to enter his bald, domelike head. One knew
instinctively that in all the forty-five or fifty years of his little
life no happiness or joy that had not been scientifically sterilized and
certified had ever been permitted to stain his super-aesthetic soul.
As he came forward, he gazed at the long-limbed man on the big bay horse
with a curious eagerness, as though he were considering a strange and
interesting creature that could scarcely be held to belong to the human
race.
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