"No," answered Mr. Gryce with a cherubic smile. "Strange to say, I had
business connected with that odd drama of _Le Sphinx_."
There was not much more talk after this, and Mr. Gryce soon took his
leave, desiring to be most respectfully remembered to Miss Dundas when
her father next wrote, and to say that he was keeping some pretty
specimens of moths for her on her return; both of which messages
Sebastian promised to convey at the earliest opportunity, improvising a
counter-remark of Leam's which he was sorry he could not remember
accurately, but it was something about butterflies and Mr. Gryce, though
what it was he could not positively say.
"Never mind: I will take the will for the deed," said the naturalist as
he smiled himself through the doorway.
And when he had gone Josephine declared that she did not care if he
never came again: there was something she did not like about him. Pushed
for a reason by her husband, who always assumed a logical and masculine
tone to her, she had not one to produce, but she stumbled as if by
chance on the word "sinister," which was just what Mr. Gryce was not. So
Sebastian made her go into the library for the dictionary and hunt up
the word through all its derivations, and thus proved to her
incontestably that she was ignorant of the English language and of human
nature in about equal proportions.
It was soon remarked at the post-office that no letter addressed to Miss
Dundas ever left North Aston, and that none came to Mr.
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