All day, she knew not why, Hylda had been nervous and excited. Without
reason his words startled her. Now there flashed before her eyes a room
in a Palace at Cairo, and a man lying dead before her. The light slowly
faded out of her eyes, leaving them almost lustreless, but her face was
calm, and the smile on her lips stayed. She fanned herself slowly, and
answered nonchalantly: "Crime is a word of many meanings. I read in the
papers of political crimes--it is a common phrase; yet the criminals
appear to go unpunished."

"There you are wrong," he answered cynically. "The punishment is, that
political virtue goes unrewarded, and in due course crime is the only
refuge to most. Yet in politics the temptation to be virtuous is great."

She laughed now with a sense of relief. The intellectual stimulant
had brought back the light to her face. "How is it, then, with you--
inveterate habit or the strain of the ages? For they say you have not
had your due reward."

He smiled grimly. "Ah, no, with me virtue is the act of an inquiring
mind--to discover where it will lead me. I began with political crime--
I was understood! I practise political virtue: it embarrasses the world,
it fogs them, it seems original, because so unnecessary. Mine is the
scientific life. Experiment in old substances gives new--well, say, new
precipitations. But you are scientific, too. You have a laboratory, and
have much to do--with retorts."

"No, you are thinking of my husband. The laboratory is his."

"But the retorts are yours."