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there was a knock at the door, and a sonorous foreign voice exclaimed—

“I beg ten thousand pardons for this intrusion, but may I ask if—Oh, my dear young lady, it is you! I thought I could not be mistaken. Well, well—this is indeed a joy!”

The professor was a stout middle-aged Germanic personage, chiefly noticeable for an iron-greyish harmony of colouring. His hair, abundant, but not barbaric; his beard trimmed to the proper artist’s, Henri Quatre, point of view; his small, bright, penetrating eyes, which betrayed a sort of confidential twinkle under their spectacles—all maintained the same sober and decorous tint, which was also harmonized (in a lower key) in his extremely correct travelling suit and dark grey necktie. His manner was considerate and gentle to an almost alarming degree, and he had a habit of bending forward and listening with a deferential expression to the simple remarks of very ordinary people, as if he were hanging on their words of wisdom. It was only a little trick of manner, but it had the effect on some very young and nervous students of causing them to wish themselves safely dead and buried, rather than conversing with the accomplished virtuoso.

The professor held Alice’s hand so long, and