well-groomed man with the eye-glass saying "What?" twice to himself inanely, and the Minister for the Fine Arts leading the way with a gait like a dromedary's.
They passed through a door and a lifted curtain, and came into the great room. There was a small raised platform to which the Professor was guided, the three men walked back into the body of the hall, and the Professor found himself alone, and without friends, gowned, with his body of MSS. before him upon a desk, and over-looking three or four hundred of the richest and therefore the most powerful men and women in England—with not a few of their hangers-on.
In moments of strain sub-conscious impressions are the strongest, as no one should know better than a Professor of Psychology; and Professor Higginson was free to confess in later years that in the first moments of nervous agony which he suffered as he looked over that mass of Cabinet Ministers, fine ladies, actresses, money-lenders, black-mailers, courtesans and touts, the chief thing that impressed him was the enormous size of the women's hats!
He grasped the desk firmly, cleared his throat, and began to read.
"The hope of a life beyond the grave"
