"Eh?" says the professor. It is a mere sound, but it expresses a great deal.
"To stay with you. Yes," nodding her head, "it has come to that at last. I warned you it _would_. I couldn't stay with her any longer. I hate her! So I have come to stay with you--_for ever_!"
She has cuddled herself into an armchair, and, indeed, looks as if a life-long residence in this room is the plan she has laid out for herself.
"Great heavens! What do you mean?" asks the poor professor, who should have sworn by the heathen gods, but in a weak moment falls back upon the good old formula. He sinks upon the table next him, and makes ruin of the notes he had been scribbling--the ink is still wet--even whilst Hardinge was with him. Could he only have known it, there are first proofs of them now upon his trousers.
"I have told you," says she. "Good gracious, what a funny room this is! I told you she was abominable to me when I came home to-night. She said dreadful things to me, and I don't care whether she is my aunt or not, I shan't let her scold me for nothing; and--I'm afraid I wasn't nice to her. I'm sorry for that, but--one isn't a bit of stone, you know, and she said something--about my mother," her eyes grow very brilliant here, "and when I walked up to her she apologized for that, but afterwards she said something about poor, _poor_ papa--and ... well, that was the end. I told her--amongst _other_ things--that I thought she was 'too old to be alive,' and she didn't seem to mind the 'other things' half as much as that, though they were awful. At all events," with a little wave of her hands, "she's lectured me now for good; I shall never see _her_ again! I've run away to you! See?"
It must be acknowledged that the professor _doesn't_ see. He is still sitting on the edge of the table--dumb.
"Oh! I'm so _glad_ I've left her," says Perpetua, with indeed heartfelt delight in look and tone. "But--do you know--I'm hungry. You--you couldn't let me make you a cup of tea, could you? I'm dreadfully thirsty! What's that in your glass?"
"Nothing," says the professor hastily. He removes the half-finished tumbler of whisky and soda, and places it in the open cupboard.
"It looked like _something_," says she. "But what about tea?"