"Why were you looking at me?" she demanded bluntly.
"It was very rude, very unfair," he admitted, "but you looked so comfortable and, if I may say so, so absurdly young, that it did not at the time seem a serious offence."
"You were studying me," she exclaimed hotly, "trying to read my mind, as I lay here asleep. Using me for a subject to dissect for one of your stupid books. Well--what have you discovered?"
"Nothing! You are so frank with me that I will be honest in my turn. It is my habit to study those about me. I am sorry; I hope you are fully aware that in my interest there was nothing that could in any way offend you."
"You mean, I suppose, that you would have looked just as closely at a toad or a potato-bug! I am quite aware of that. I am not even angry any more, only curious. What can you tell me about myself?"
"Nothing, my dear young lady, only that you have, in common with the rest of the world, two natures, warring against one another, in your heart. I will confess that in your case I thought I saw a flash of something deeper, more tragic, than one usually finds in the face of a young girl, just a bad dream perhaps, or perhaps a real trouble. If the last, I would gladly do my best to help you."
"Because I have worked very hard for fifty years, and sometimes I am discouraged at the little real good my knowledge has ever done. I have more than my share of money, and time, and influence; any or all of these are at your disposal."
"You were a Professor, they told me, and a writer of books?"
"Yes. I am, if I am anything, a Psychologist."
"My father was that," remarked Lola a trifle bitterly, "although to me it was never anything but a name."
"It is merely a name for a very simple thing: the art of keeping one's eyes open. Psychology is the study of mental phenomena; I believe that is as good a definition as it is possible to give, and it means only the study of our fellow creatures, in the hope that in the end the psychologist may do for the mind what the physician now does for the body."
"And to do this, to learn this new trade of yours, you hesitate no more about robbing me of my mind and dissecting it than a country medical student would hesitate to rob a grave."
"Not any more certainly," he replied, evidently still much amused at her indignation, "but as I have perceived nothing but a well-deserved rebuke, perhaps you will forgive me. I am on duty to-day, as you see; after many years of careful study I am considered worthy of a very sacred trust. I am granted the privilege of playing nurse to a child and a dog."