Athelstone
explained: "This is our new clerk, Mr. Simpkins; Doctor Brander is our
treasurer, and our acting president while my husband's away. He left a
few days ago for a little rest." And Mrs. Athelstone turned back to her
desk.
Simpkins instantly decided to dislike the young clergyman beside him. He
was tall and athletic-looking, but with a slight stoop, that impressed
the reporter as a physical assumption of humility which the handsome
face, with its faintly sneering lines and bold eyes, contradicted. But
he acknowledged Brander's offhand "How d'ye do?" in a properly
deferential manner, and listened respectfully to a few careless
sentences of instructions.
For the rest of the morning, Simpkins mechanically addressed circulars
appealing for funds to carry on the good work of the Society, while his
mind was busy trying to formulate a plan by which he could get Mrs.
Athelstone to tell what she knew about the whereabouts of Madame
Blavatsky's soul. He felt, with the accurate instinct of one used to
classing the frailties of flesh and blood according to their worth in
columns, that those devices which had so often led women to confide
to him the details of the particular sensation that he was working up
would avail him nothing here. "You simply haven't got her Bertillon
measurements, Simp.
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